Vss Query Analytics

Video Analytics (VA-MCP)

Queries incidents, alerts, and metrics stored in Elasticsearch via MCP JSON-RPC at port 9901.

Overview

Use this skill to fetch real-time or historical telemetry and compliance records stored in Elasticsearch. Always run queries programmatically via the VA-MCP server.

Key capabilities:

• Getting incident details by unique identifier.
• Aggregating statistical trends (e.g. average people count over a time window).
• Searching for safety/PPE alerts across active video streams.

Prerequisites

• VA-MCP Running: Ensure the vss-va-mcp service is running on port 9901.
• Session Identification: All JSON-RPC queries require an active mcp-session-id fetched from an initialization header.

Instructions

1. Two-Step JSON-RPC Pattern

To make queries, execute two consecutive shell/curl commands:

1. Initialize Session: Perform a POST call to http://localhost:9901/mcp with an initialize JSON payload, and grep for the mcp-session-id header.
2. Execute Tool Call: Send a POST call to http://localhost:9901/mcp with the tools/call method, passing the session header and the desired parameters.

2. Available Tool Options

Replace the parameters under Step 2 to target specific services:

• video_analytics__get_incidents — list recent incidents.
• video_analytics__get_incident — inspect detailed object lists / metadata.
• video_analytics__get_sensor_ids — find registered sensor identifiers.
• video_analytics__get_places — find configured spatial tags.
• video_analytics__get_fov_histogram — plot density curves.
• video_analytics__analyze — calculate metrics like speed or occupancies.

Examples

Get Incidents (Standard Query)

# Step 1: initialize — get session ID from response HEADER
SESSION_ID=$(curl -si -X POST http://localhost:9901/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"initialize","params":{"protocolVersion":"2024-11-05","capabilities":{},"clientInfo":{"name":"cli","version":"1.0"}},"id":0}' \
  | grep -i "mcp-session-id" | awk '{print $2}' | tr -d '\r')

# Step 2: call the tool using the session ID in the header
curl -s -X POST http://localhost:9901/mcp \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -H "Accept: application/json, text/event-stream" \
  -H "mcp-session-id: $SESSION_ID" \
  -d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"video_analytics__get_incidents","arguments":{"max_count":10}},"id":1}' \
  | grep '^data:' | sed 's/^data: //' | jq -r '.result.content[0].text'

Parameter Configurations

Query a Specific Camera:

-d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"video_analytics__get_incidents","arguments":{"source":"sensor_0","source_type":"sensor","max_count":20}},"id":1}'

Filter to Confirmed Events Only:

-d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"video_analytics__get_incidents","arguments":{"vlm_verdict":"confirmed","max_count":10}},"id":1}'

Analyze Average Occupancy:

-d '{"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"tools/call","params":{"name":"video_analytics__analyze","arguments":{"source":"sensor_0","source_type":"sensor","start_time":"2025-09-11T00:00:00Z","end_time":"2025-09-11T23:59:59Z","analysis_type":"avg_num_people"}},"id":1}'

Error Handling

Connection Refused / Service Unreachable (port 9901)

If the connection is refused, the vss-va-mcp service might be offline:

1. Check the status of the container:

   docker ps -a --filter name=vss-va-mcp
   

2. Restart the service if it is down:

   docker compose -f deployments/compose.yml --profile bp_sop_2d restart vss-va-mcp
   

Missing Session ID

If the command fails with Bad Request: Missing session ID, ensure:

1. Step 1 (the initialization call) ran successfully.
2. The SESSION_ID variable was correctly parsed from response headers (not the response body).

License

Use of this skill is governed by the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) and the Apache License, Version 2.0.