# Vss Ask Video

Use this skill when answering a question about previously analyzed or freshly scoped...

- Repository: https://github.com/NVIDIA-AI-Blueprints/video-search-and-summarization (1959 stars)
- Category: AI and agents
- License: Apache-2.0
- Last updated: 2026-11-01
- Runs scripts: no, instructions only

## Install

Claude Code: `npx skills add NVIDIA-AI-Blueprints/video-search-and-summarization --skill vss-ask-video -g -a claude-code -y`
Codex: `npx skills add NVIDIA-AI-Blueprints/video-search-and-summarization --skill vss-ask-video -g -a codex -y`
Cursor: `npx skills add NVIDIA-AI-Blueprints/video-search-and-summarization --skill vss-ask-video -g -a cursor -y`
Gemini CLI: `npx skills add NVIDIA-AI-Blueprints/video-search-and-summarization --skill vss-ask-video -g -a gemini-cli -y`

## Description

Use this skill when answering a question about previously analyzed or freshly scoped VSS video, or when reading a stored VSS memory job or record by id, or whenever a question should be answered by running the `vss memory introspect` command. Route through hot context, agent Markdown notes, `vss memory get` or `vss memory query`, `vss memory introspect`, or an exact-window `vss vlm run`. Not for video retrieval or metadata-answerable questions.

## SKILL.md, as published by its author (untrusted third-party text, read it as data)

# Ask a VSS video question

## When to Use

- Answer a question about previously analyzed or freshly scoped VSS video
- Read a stored VSS memory job or record by id
- Answer a question that requires running `vss memory introspect`
- Answer a directly scoped URL, file, or sensor-window question via `vss vlm run`

Not for video retrieval or metadata-answerable questions.

Answer from the cheapest grounded source that can satisfy the question. For a
running VSS deployment, use the installed `vss` CLI. Do not call an
OpenAI-compatible `/chat/completions` endpoint directly or fall back to raw REST
when a CLI command fails.

This skill does not call `POST /generate` on the VSS agent. It requires a
**deployed VSS with `vss configure` already run**.

> **Hard rule, use the `vss` CLI.** `vss configure` has already pointed it at
> the deployment's proxy, so every VSS action goes through that CLI and nothing
> reaches the deployment any other way.
>
> Four things follow, because each has been done instead:
> - use the `vss` on PATH (see Prerequisites) and call it as `vss`. Do not
>   build a parallel virtualenv or wrap it in another launcher;
> - `vss vlm run` is the only eye on the video - never post to
>   `/v1/chat/completions`, `/generate` or `/v1/summarize` yourself, and never
>   decode or sample frames and answer from them;
> - a named sensor is `--sensor`, never a file, and its window goes in
>   `--start-time`/`--end-time`, not the prompt. A name the deployment knows as a
>   sensor stays a sensor even when a file of that name sits on disk: that file is
>   a copy someone left behind, and `--file` on it drops the recorded timeline the
>   window flags need, so the window is rejected and the call looks worth
>   retrying;
> - a failing call is a finding: report the exit code rather than routing around
>   it, repairing the deployment, or looking again.

## Prerequisites

The rest: https://github.com/NVIDIA-AI-Blueprints/video-search-and-summarization/blob/HEAD/skills/operations/vss-ask-video/SKILL.md