Today I spoke at GitHub Copilot Dev Days | Kathmandu, organized by .NET Hub Kathmandu. It was my first proper talk in front of a developer crowd. And it went well — better than I expected.
My session was called "Vibe Coding to Production: Agentic Workflows with Copilot".
But the real centerpiece was Umbraco MCP running live, in front of real people.
What I Actually Showed
If you've read my earlier post on Model Context Protocol (MCP), you know I've been thinking about this for a while. MCP lets AI assistants connect to external systems — in this case, Umbraco — so instead of just generating text, the AI can actually do things. Create content. Update nodes. Navigate the CMS.
The demo I ran was intentionally hands-off. I wanted the audience to see it be autonomous — not me steering it step by step, but the model reasoning, choosing tools, and completing tasks on its own.
It worked. And I didn't breathe properly until it did.
What Happened in the Room
People got curious. That's the best way I can describe it.
Not politely curious — actually curious. The questions during the open floor weren't surface-level. They wanted to know how the tool selection worked, what happened when the model got it wrong, whether this could plug into their own CMS or workflow.
That kind of reaction tells you something. It means the demo landed not just as a cool trick, but as something people could imagine using. That's the goal.
What I Learned From Giving a Talk
A few honest notes:
Preparation is not the same as being ready. I rehearsed the demo more times than I can count. I still wasn't sure it would work until it did. That uncertainty doesn't go away — you just learn to stand in it.
The audience doesn't want polish. They want honesty. The moments that resonated weren't the smooth transitions. They were when I said "here's what I wasn't sure about" or "this part surprised me too."
Showing is better than explaining. I could have spent 20 minutes defining MCP. Instead I ran the demo in the first few minutes and let people feel what autonomous tooling looks like. The rest of the talk was just context around something they'd already seen.
Why I'm Writing This Down
I almost didn't submit to speak. I thought — I'm not experienced enough, other speakers know more, the audience will have better questions than I have answers.
All of that might have been true. But none of it was a reason not to go.
If you're a developer sitting on something you've built or figured out — the community needs to hear it. Not because you're an expert. But because you've lived it, and that's worth sharing.
Slides and demo materials — coming soon. If you were at the event and want to talk more about Umbraco MCP, reach out: [email protected]