# Retrieve Amazon ECS diagnostic details with agent introspection
<a name="introspection-diag"></a>

The Amazon ECS agent introspection API provides information about the overall state of the Amazon ECS agent and the container instances.

 You can use the agent introspection API to get the Docker ID for a container in your task. You can use the agent introspection API by connecting to a container instance using SSH.

**Important**  
Your container instance must have an IAM role that allows access to Amazon ECS in order to reach the introspection API. For more information, see [Amazon ECS container instance IAM role](instance_IAM_role.md).

The following example shows two tasks, one that is currently running and one that was stopped.

**Note**  
The following command is piped through the **python -mjson.tool** for greater readability.

```
curl http://localhost:51678/v1/tasks | python -mjson.tool
```

Output:

```
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100  1095  100  1095    0     0   117k      0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:--  133k
{
    "Tasks": [
        {
            "Arn": "arn:aws:ecs:us-west-2:aws_account_id:task/090eff9b-1ce3-4db6-848a-a8d14064fd24",
            "Containers": [
                {
                    "DockerId": "189a8ff4b5f04affe40e5160a5ffadca395136eb5faf4950c57963c06f82c76d",
                    "DockerName": "ecs-console-sample-app-static-6-simple-app-86caf9bcabe3e9c61600",
                    "Name": "simple-app"
                },
                {
                    "DockerId": "f7f1f8a7a245c5da83aa92729bd28c6bcb004d1f6a35409e4207e1d34030e966",
                    "DockerName": "ecs-console-sample-app-static-6-busybox-ce83ce978a87a890ab01",
                    "Name": "busybox"
                }
            ],
            "Family": "console-sample-app-static",
            "KnownStatus": "STOPPED",
            "Version": "6"
        },
        {
            "Arn": "arn:aws:ecs:us-west-2:aws_account_id:task/1810e302-eaea-4da9-a638-097bea534740",
            "Containers": [
                {
                    "DockerId": "dc7240fe892ab233dbbcee5044d95e1456c120dba9a6b56ec513da45c38e3aeb",
                    "DockerName": "ecs-console-sample-app-static-6-simple-app-f0e5859699a7aecfb101",
                    "Name": "simple-app"
                },
                {
                    "DockerId": "096d685fb85a1ff3e021c8254672ab8497e3c13986b9cf005cbae9460b7b901e",
                    "DockerName": "ecs-console-sample-app-static-6-busybox-92e4b8d0ecd0cce69a01",
                    "Name": "busybox"
                }
            ],
            "DesiredStatus": "RUNNING",
            "Family": "console-sample-app-static",
            "KnownStatus": "RUNNING",
            "Version": "6"
        }
    ]
}
```

In the preceding example, the stopped task (*090eff9b-1ce3-4db6-848a-a8d14064fd24*) has two containers. You can use **docker inspect *container-ID*** to view detailed information on each container. For more information, see [Amazon ECS container introspection](ecs-agent-introspection.md).