FPV — Claude Code in the loop
#fpv/tools · Note 7 of 7 · part of Drones
Where an agent actually earns its keep in this hobby, and where it does not.
Where it genuinely helps
Blackbox analysis. Export a log to CSV and have it plot gyro spectra, compare two flights before and after a filter change, and tell you which axis is noisy. This is exactly the sort of tedious numeric work that is quick to describe and slow to do. Pairs with FPV — Tuning and flying.
Betaflight CLI diffs, versioned. diff all after every change, saved into
this vault as a dated file. Then ask for the diff between two of them. Six
months later, "what did I change when it started oscillating" becomes answerable
instead of a memory test.
Bills of materials. Give it the parts list from FPV — The first build and have it produce a table with weights and prices, total AUW, and a hover-thrust sanity check. Then keep that table in the vault and embed it into every build note that uses the same parts — write once, reuse.
Weight and thrust budgets. Thrust-to-weight from motor thrust-test data, with the arithmetic done properly rather than in your head at 1am.
Battery cycle logs. A note per pack, cycles appended, internal resistance tracked over time. It will tell you a pack is dying before it dumps you out of the sky.
Parametric CAD dimensions. Keep the numbers from FPV — CAD and simulation in a note rather than only inside the model, so the mount and the notes cannot disagree.
The wiring diagram. A .canvas file is just JSON — it can be generated. See
FPV build map for what a canvas looks like once rendered.
These notes. Structure, cross-links, and consistent tags across a growing series is exactly the work that decays when done by hand.
Where it does not help
An agent will state a motor's KV, a battery's C rating or an ESC's current limit with complete confidence and no source. Check the vendor page. Getting this wrong is not a typo, it is a fire.
- It cannot tune your quad. It has never felt propwash. It can read a log; it cannot tell you whether the quad feels sharp.
- It cannot judge a solder joint. Send it a photo and it will say something agreeable. Look at the joint yourself.
- It should not be trusted on airspace rules. These are jurisdictional and they change. Read the primary source.
The pattern that works
Keep the artifacts in the vault — CLI diffs, BOMs, logs, cycle counts — and use the agent to transform and query them. The vault is the memory; the agent is the processing. Neither is much use without the other, and only one of them is still there in five years.
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