carla-simulator/carla-agentic-tools/telemetry

Read actor telemetry

Paths. scripts/… and references/… below are relative to the

directory holding this SKILL.md. Your working directory is the user's

project, not that directory, so prefix them with its absolute path or the

command is not found.

Report one actor's live state. Kinematics (transform, velocity, acceleration, angular velocity) are read from a single world.get_snapshot() so they belong to the same frame — calling the per-actor getters separately can straddle two frames and give inconsistent numbers.

Target the actor by --id (the reliable way), --role hero, --filter, --color, or --nearest --near-id N. If several still match, it stops and tells you to narrow by a distinguishing attribute or resolve the id with the `world-data` skill, then pass --id.

Instructions

Progress:
- [ ] Step 1: Check prerequisites (bash scripts/check_env.sh), clear FAILs
- [ ] Step 2: Resolve the target id (world-data) if the description is ambiguous
- [ ] Step 3: show a snapshot, or watch to stream it

Commands need CARLA_HOST/CARLA_PORT from scripts/env.sh.

Step 1: Check prerequisites

bash scripts/check_env.sh

Step 3: Read

source scripts/env.sh
 
python3 scripts/telemetry.py show --role hero            # the ego
python3 scripts/telemetry.py show --id 137               # a specific actor
python3 scripts/telemetry.py watch --id 137 --seconds 10 --hz 5    # stream
 
# resolve first, then read (ambiguous case)
# world-data actors --filter '*prius*' --near-id 100 --nearest   -> id=137
python3 scripts/telemetry.py show --id 137
# or directly by a distinguishing attribute
python3 scripts/telemetry.py show --filter '*prius*' --color 255,0,0

On CARLA 0.10.0 (the UE5 line: 5.5 and 5.8)

get_telemetry_data() and show_debug_telemetry() both still exist on 0.10.0, and everything this skill reads — location, rotation, velocity, acceleration, angular velocity, get_control(), get_wheel_steer_angle() — is unchanged.

The one field it touches on the physics control, mass, is also unchanged. Other physics fields were renamed wholesale by the Chaos rewrite; see [[control-vehicle]] for the mapping if you extend this skill to report them.

Sampling caveat that is not version-specific but bites hardest here: in asynchronous mode get_location() on a just-spawned actor returns the origin until the first tick lands, so a "distance travelled" computed from it is really distance-from-origin. Wait for a tick (or two) after spawning before taking a first sample.

Examples

Example 1: how fast is the ego

User says: "how fast is the ego going?"

show --role hero → speed in km/h (+ full state).

Example 2: one prius among several

User says: "telemetry of the prius near me"

world-data actors --filter '*prius*' --near-id <ego> --nearest → id, then telemetry show --id <id>.

Example 3: watch a vehicle accelerate

User says: "stream the ego's speed for 10 s"

watch --role hero --seconds 10 --hz 5.

Troubleshooting

Problem: "N actors match — disambiguate" Cause: --filter is ambiguous. Solution: use world-data to pick one, then pass --id.

Problem: speed/accel are zero or jumpy Cause: the world isn't advancing (sync mode without ticks), or the actor is idle. Solution: tick the world (set-world-settings) or run async; the snapshot keeps the reads frame-consistent regardless.

Problem: no wheel/control info Cause: the actor isn't a vehicle (walkers/sensors have no VehicleControl). Solution: expected; those show only transform/velocity/acceleration.

Outputs

Text telemetry (one snapshot, or a stream). No world change.

Detail (frame-consistent snapshot reads, the fields, vehicle-specific state) in references/telemetry.md.