vss-search

<!-- SPDX-FileCopyrightText: (C) 2026 Intel Corporation SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 -->

VSS Search

Natural-language search over the indexed video library. Run the curl commands yourself and relay results. Endpoints use the nginx /manager prefix.

Set HOST=http://${HOST_IP:-localhost}:${APP_HOST_PORT:-12345}.

Preconditions

Backend healthy and search enabled — probe first; if not, use vss-doctor / vss-up:

curl -sf "$HOST/manager/health" >/dev/null && \
curl -s "$HOST/manager/app/features" | jq '.search // .'

1. Upload a video (if not already ingested)

POST /manager/videos — multipart/form-data, field name video, optional comma-separated tags. File must be a streamable MP4 (server rejects otherwise).

curl -s -X POST "$HOST/manager/videos" \
  -F "video=@/path/to/clip.mp4" \
  -F "tags=outdoor,daytime" | jq .
# → { "videoId": "<VIDEO_ID>" }

List / inspect existing videos instead. The list response is an object { "videos": [...] }, not a bare array; name is a generated hash, so use url / dataStore.fileName for the real filename:

curl -s "$HOST/manager/videos" | jq '.videos[] | {videoId, file: .dataStore.fileName}'
curl -s "$HOST/manager/videos/<VIDEO_ID>" | jq '.video'   # single record is wrapped under .video

2. Generate search embeddings

A video is not searchable until embeddings exist. Trigger them after upload (or to retry a failed run):

curl -s -X POST "$HOST/manager/videos/search-embeddings/<VIDEO_ID>" | jq .

Wait for completion (re-check the video record) before querying.

3. Query

One-off query — POST /manager/search/query. The response is an object { "results": [ { "query_id", "results": [ … ] } ] } — wrapped, NOT a bare array — so the ranked clips are at .results[].results[]:

curl -s -X POST "$HOST/manager/search/query" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "query": "person wearing a hat",
    "tags": "indoor",
    "timeFilter": { "value": 7, "unit": "days" }
  }' | jq -r '.results[].results[]
      | "score=\(.metadata.relevance_score)  clip=\(.metadata.segment_start)-\(.metadata.segment_end)s  seek=\(.metadata.seek_timestamp)s  video_id=\(.metadata.video_id)"'

• query (required): natural language.
• tags (optional): comma-separated, intersected with the query.
• timeFilter (optional): either relative (value + unit = minutes|hours|days|weeks) or absolute (start/end ISO-8601). See references/search-request.md.

Each clip's metadata carries relevance_score (0..1; top hit can be exactly 1), video_id, video_url, segment_start/segment_end, seek_timestamp, tags, and video_metadata (duration/fps). In search mode page_content is a segment locator ("Video segment from Ns to Ms…"), not a caption.

Filename is NOT in the result — metadata has video_id but no video / file_name. To show the clip's filename, join video_id against the video list (.videos[].dataStore.fileName):

curl -s "$HOST/manager/videos" \
  | jq '[.videos[] | {key:.videoId, value:.dataStore.fileName}] | from_entries' > /tmp/idmap.json
curl -s -X POST "$HOST/manager/search/query" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{ "query": "person wearing a hat" }' \
  | jq --slurpfile m /tmp/idmap.json -r '.results[].results[]
      | "score=\(.metadata.relevance_score)  file=\($m[0][.metadata.video_id] // "?")  clip=\(.metadata.segment_start)-\(.metadata.segment_end)s"'

Present top hits with their filename + clip window + seek time.

4. Saved / managed queries (optional)

curl -s -X POST "$HOST/manager/search" -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"query":"forklift"}' | jq .          # create a persistent query → queryId
curl -s "$HOST/manager/search/<QUERY_ID>" | jq .          # fetch results
curl -s -X POST "$HOST/manager/search/<QUERY_ID>/refetch" | jq .   # re-run
curl -s -X PATCH "$HOST/manager/search/<QUERY_ID>/watch" \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' -d '{"watch":true}'   # auto-refresh
curl -s "$HOST/manager/search/watched" | jq .
curl -s -X DELETE "$HOST/manager/search/<QUERY_ID>"