Best way to send I2C commands between Arduino and ESP32
First, using a byte-value based protocol is the standard with I2C. There is no real reason to go to ASCII encoded data (The reason for doing this with Serial (UART) is normally, that the message is human readable at the PC. This is normally not the case with I2C, since only computers like the Raspberry Pi even have I2C interfaces).

About delimiters: They are only really needed for asynchronous data transfers (as UART)(to frame a full packet/message) or maybe, if you have an unknown transmission size. Both is not the case for I2C (it is a synchronous interface, that already implements transmission packages/message). You can look at the datasheet of any I2C sensor. The standard communication protocol is a command send by the master, then sending/receiving a specific number of bytes with a specific protocol, that defines, which bytes contains which information. Here you don't need a delimiter, because you already know, in what format the data will be send.



Let's take an example from your question: You want the Arduino to report the speed of your motor to the ESP. You implement the first byte of every master write transmission as a command, for example the decimal value 10 as command to report the motor speed. Then you terminate the master write transmission and request 1 byte from the Arduino (since you already know, that the motor speed has 1 byte). The Arduino knows through the command, that it should send the motor speed byte, and the ESP knows, that the byte received will be the 1 byte motor speed.

Now we define the command 11 to report the motor speed and the 3 bytes sensor value. The ESP sends 11 and then requests 4 bytes, as it knows, that the message will be 4 bytes long. The Arduino sends the data and the ESP knows, that the first byte will be the motor speed and the following 3 bytes the sensor value. No delimiter is needed, since the structure of your data is already defined through the implementation of your protocol. Start or end markers for a message are not needed, since I2C already works with distinct message/packets of data (a transmission is started with a START condition on the bus and ended with a STOP condition).



This solution is used for most I2C devices, since it is easier to implement at a low level. At the first glance for us humans it seems easier to use ASCII encoded and thus human readable data. But as you already mentioned, this makes it more complex for microcontrollers (writing parsers for ASCII data is more complex than using binary data on a fixed protocol). Keep in mind, that I2C means "Inter Integrated Circuit", so communication between integrated circuits, not communication between an integrated circuit and a human.

But in the end it is up to you to decide, which protocol you want to use.



As you might not know the concept yet: A Finite State Machine (FSM) is a good way to implement such a communication protocol on both sides. You define a state variable and based on this variable only the corresponding code is executed. You can change the state by changing the state variable.

For example on the Arduino (receiver side): First state could be the command state, where the Arduino waits for an I2C transmission. If a transmission was received, it will read it's first byte. Depending on this byte it will go into a different state, for example into the "Send motor speed" state. There it will prepare everything to send the motor speed to the master, should the master request data from the Arduino.

How to implement a FSM in detail is covered in many tutorials on the web and also in many questions on this side. You can see my answer to this question, where I explained this in more detail.