aeon-cameras

name

aeon-cameras

description

Choose what an AEON Magick Orb's eye is pointed at. An Orb can have several video inputs wired to it — a USB HDMI-capture stick, a Pi-5 HDMI→CSI bridge (watch the controlled machine's screen), and a Pi-5 CSI camera (look at a physical scene through a lens). This skill reads the available capture sources and switches the live source so the console snapshot/stream shows what you need. Pi-5-only sources (camera-csi, hdmi-csi) are gated by the Orb's model. Load this when you need to switch between "see the screen I control" and "see a physical thing"; for plain screen viewing use the core aeon-magick skill's vision reference.

aeon-cameras

Switch an Orb's capture source — what its console (snapshot / stream / recording) is looking at. The core aeon-magick skill's vision reference shows you the current feed; this skill picks which input that feed comes from.

Credentials. Auth = Authorization: Bearer $AEON_TOKEN against https://$AEON_HOST (self-signed → curl -k). The token is never in this skill — export AEON_TOKEN=<your token> (e.g. from your password manager) or load ~/.openclaw/aeon-magick.env (set -a; . ~/.openclaw/aeon-magick.env; set +a). A 401 means the token is unset/wrong — fix that, don't switch tools.

Switching a source is a Full-tier op.

the source set

The active source lives in /etc/aeon/streamer.toml [capture] source and is exposed over the API. The vocabulary is {auto, cam-link-usb, hdmi-csi, camera-csi}:

source	hardware	what you see
auto	—	first available source automatically (safe default)
cam-link-usb	Elgato Cam Link 4K USB capture	the controlled machine's HDMI screen, over a USB stick
hdmi-csi	Pi-5 Geekworm X1301 HDMI→CSI bridge	the controlled machine's HDMI screen, over the CSI ribbon (Pi 5 only)
camera-csi	Pi-5 CSI camera (e.g. Sony IMX477 HQ Camera)	a physical scene through a lens — a thing in the room, not a screen (Pi 5 only)

cam-link-usb and hdmi-csi both watch the screen you're driving; flip to camera-csi when you need to look at something physical (a status LED, a phone, the rack, a printout) instead of the controlled desktop.

read the current source

curl -sk -H "Authorization: Bearer $AEON_TOKEN" \
    "https://$AEON_HOST/api/streamer/config"

{
  "ok": true,
  "source": "camera-csi",
  "platform": "pi5",
  "available_sources": ["auto", "hdmi-csi", "camera-csi"],
  "fps": 30,
  "width": 1920,
  "height": 1080,
  "format": "h264",
  "hw_accel": false,
  "jpeg_quality": 70,
  "rotation": 0,
  "hflip": false,
  "vflip": false
}

rotation / hflip / vflip echo the current server-side orientation (see "rotate / flip the view" below).

platform is pi4, pi5, or other, and it gates which sources exist: hdmi-csi and camera-csi are Pi-5-only, so a Pi-4 Orb usually lists only auto + cam-link-usb. Never assume a source is selectable — pick only from available_sources for that specific Orb. (In a fleet, each peer reports its own model and sources; see the aeon-fleet skill.)

switch the source live

curl -sk -H "Authorization: Bearer $AEON_TOKEN" -X PUT \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{"source": "camera-csi"}' \
    "https://$AEON_HOST/api/streamer/config"

The PUT rewrites the config and restarts the streamer to bring up the new pipeline — expect a brief feed blip, then snapshot/stream/ws show the new source. Send just source to switch the eye and leave everything else alone (the same PUT also accepts fps and jpeg_quality to tune encoding, and rotation/hflip/vflip to re-orient — see below). Re-read /api/streamer/config (or take a snapshot) after switching to confirm it took.

A typical vision agent flips between "see the screen I control" (hdmi-csi / cam-link-usb) and "see a physical thing" (camera-csi) as the task demands — switch, snapshot, reason, switch back.

rotate / flip the view

A camera is often mounted sideways or upside-down. Correct it server-side on the same /api/streamer/config endpoint — rotation (degrees clockwise, snapped to 0 | 90 | 180 | 270) plus hflip (mirror left↔right) / vflip (mirror top↔bottom):

curl -sk -H "Authorization: Bearer $AEON_TOKEN" -X PUT \
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
    -d '{"rotation": 90, "hflip": false, "vflip": false}' \
    "https://$AEON_HOST/api/streamer/config"

The correction is baked into the capture pipeline (an ffmpeg transpose / hflip,vflip before the encode split), so it applies identically to the snapshot, the live stream, recordings, AND the vision/OCR feed — flip a sideways Pi-camera mount once and everything downstream (including screen_text / screen_find boxes) reads upright. A 90/270 quarter-turn swaps the reported width↔height, so the resolution and the 0..1 coordinate space follow the rotated view. Send orientation keys alone to re-orient without touching the source or encoding; like a source switch it restarts the streamer (brief blip).

Orientation is mainly for camera-csi (a physical camera on a turned mount). Don't rotate a screen source you drive with HID (cam-link-usb/hdmi-csi) — the host's screen isn't rotated, so a rotated view only confuses your click math.

caveats

• Single-camera contention. The aeon-webcam passthrough draws from the same physical inputs. Don't point the console and the webcam at the same source (e.g. both on camera-csi) — they'll contend and one may go black.
• No MCP tool — source switching is REST-only; an MCP agent curls /api/streamer/config directly.