Couch Call

A free household play-along for live sports on Alexa+: when the game hits a big moment, the room calls it out loud, the play settles it, and a family leaderboard carries over all season.

Watch the demo: YOUTUBE_URL

Quickstart (mock mode, no AWS needed)

Needs Node 22 or newer and pnpm 10.

pnpm install
pnpm seed
pnpm dev

Open http://localhost:3000. The Couch Call MCP server runs on http://127.0.0.1:3001/mcp and the test bench (the Alexa+ stand-in) on port 3000. Mock mode uses a rule-based host instead of Bedrock and a silent clip instead of Polly. Type "start couch call for the game" in the "Type instead" box.

Real voice and Bedrock

1. Sign in with the AWS CLI: aws login --profile <your-profile>. The profile needs Amazon Bedrock access to Nova 2 Lite and Amazon Polly in its Region.

2. Copy .env.example to .env.local and set AWS_PROFILE, AWS_REGION, BEDROCK_MODEL_ID (default global.amazon.nova-2-lite-v1:0) and POLLY_VOICE (default Joanna).

3. Run pnpm dev:real. Bedrock and Polly are called only from the test bench's server routes, with the named profile's credentials. If your shell exports AWS_BEARER_TOKEN_BEDROCK, the scripts remove it so the profile is used.

Related MCP server: CartWeave MCP Server

Why it matters

• Live sports are watched together, by a room full of people on one couch.

• Alexa+ is already in those rooms, on Echo Show and Fire TV.

• Amazon reports that customers engage 6 times more with services integrated with Alexa+ (Alexa+ developer blog, July 2026).

The core loop

1. The household starts a game night; the game feed begins.

2. A big moment comes up: "Third and seven. Run or pass?" and a 9-second window opens.

3. Everyone calls it out loud; each call is recorded until the snap locks the window.

4. The play resolves the moment; correct callers score, with an underdog bonus and a streak multiplier.

5. Points roll into a family season table that survives restarts.

Architecture

flowchart LR
  subgraph Bench["Test bench (Next.js, port 3000)"]
    UI["Browser: MCP client, voice and typing, device frames, dev panel"]
    Converse["/api/converse: Bedrock Converse (Nova 2 Lite)"]
    TTS["/api/tts: Polly neural, cached"]
  end
  subgraph Server["Couch Call MCP server (port 3001)"]
    HTTP["Streamable HTTP /mcp: sessions, SSE ids, Origin check"]
    Tools["8 tools, session resource, board view"]
    Engine["Replay feed, moment detector, resolver, scoring"]
    DB[("SQLite, write-through")]
  end
  Skill["skill/couch-call-host/SKILL.md"]
  UI -- "JSON-RPC: tools/call, resources/subscribe" --> HTTP
  HTTP -- "notifications/resources/updated, elicitation" --> UI
  UI -- "messages and tool results" --> Converse
  Converse -- "toolUse" --> UI
  UI --> TTS
  Skill -. "system prompt" .-> Converse
  HTTP --> Tools --> Engine --> DB
  UI -- "ext-apps AppBridge" --> Board["ui://couch-call/board in the Fire TV and Echo Show frames"]

The MCP server is the hackathon entry. The test bench plays the part of Alexa+: it runs a real MCP client in the browser, asks Bedrock what to do with the tools, speaks with Polly, and renders the MCP Apps board inside two device frames.

Where the required tech is called

Generated by pnpm tech-map (also in docs/where-tech-is-called.md).

MCP 2025-11-25 features used

Latency

Every tool call is answered locally with no LLM or network call inside the handler. Amazon's limit is a 500 ms round trip.

Measured 2026-10-21 by pnpm latency: a real MCP client over Streamable HTTP against the server on 127.0.0.1, 200 calls per tool, round trip in ms. Machine: Apple M2, Node v26.7.0. Amazon's limit is 500 ms; our target is p95 under 50 ms.

Testing it as a judge

No login and no AWS account are needed in mock mode.

pnpm install
pnpm seed      # household with Riya, Kabir and Meera, plus last week's night
pnpm dev       # MCP server on 3001 with dev controls, test bench on 3000

• Replay game id: gulls-vs-foxes-q4 (a fictional 4th quarter: Harbor City Gulls vs Ridgeview Foxes, 64 plays).

• In the test bench, type: "start couch call for the game", then "Riya says pass, Kabir says run", "who's winning the season", "what did I miss", "end the night", "yes".

• Dev controls (also in the bench's dev panel, Replay tab):

curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3001/dev/pause
curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3001/dev/next-moment
curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3001/dev/resume
curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3001/dev/speed -H 'content-type: application/json' -d '{"speed":10}'
curl -X POST http://127.0.0.1:3001/dev/reset

• Any MCP client can connect to http://127.0.0.1:3001/mcp; the MCP Inspector's origin (port 6274) is allowed.

• Checks: pnpm test (unit and integration), pnpm e2e (Playwright, mock mode), pnpm latency, pnpm tech-map.

Honest limits

• This is a simulator, not real Alexa+. The Alexa+ Category SDK, MCP Toolkit and Web Simulator are partner-only previews, so the test bench stands in for Alexa+ with a real MCP client, Bedrock and Polly.

• Voice ID is replaced by "Name says X" and by tap chips for each player.

• A live feed adapter is designed (the FeedSource interface in packages/server/src/engine/feed.ts), but only the replay feed is built.

Beyond the hackathon

The engine is a moment detector plus a resolver, so other events fit the same loop with a new event pack: basketball (free throws, the final possession), cricket overs (boundary or dot ball) and award shows (who wins the category).

License

MIT. See LICENSE.