Evidence Bridge

How seized trap phones reach your police paperwork. This page is for server owners and developers who want an officer's Send report to land in their own MDT (the police computer where cases live), or who want phone evidence logged somewhere without an MDT at all.

The Three Layers

Each layer works without the ones below it. A server with no police resource at all still gets layer 1.

Layer 1: Built In

A trap phone is a normal inventory item, so whatever your police use to search people, confiscate items or store evidence already moves it. When an officer with an evidence job uses a phone that isn't theirs, they get Evidence View: a read-only copy of the phone with every conversation, the contacts, the booked meets (with GPS), and Trace number on other burners' numbers.

Nothing to install or configure. The settings are in Pressure → Evidence (see Configuration → Evidence).

Without a bridge, Send report tells the officer "No case system". Everything else works.

Layer 2: Hooks

Every time an officer opens a seized phone, oxide-drugselling builds a report of the whole phone, including a plain-text copy (report.text) you can paste anywhere. You can catch it three ways.

A config function

Config.OnPhoneExamined in shared/config.lua runs on the server with the officer's server ID and the report. It's never stored in the database, so edits apply after a restart.

Config.OnPhoneExamined = function(src, report)
    if not report then return end
    print(('[evidence] officer %d examined %s'):format(src, report.number))
end

Server events

These fire on the server only. Players can't trigger them.

Example: post examined phones to a Discord channel

This is a tiny resource of your own, so the webhook stays on the server.

fx_version 'cerulean'
game 'gta5'
server_script 'server.lua'

local WEBHOOK = GetConvar('evidence_webhook', '')

AddEventHandler('oxide-drugselling:evidence:phoneExamined', function(src, report)
    if WEBHOOK == '' or type(report) ~= 'table' then return end

    -- Discord messages are limited to 2000 characters
    local body = report.text or ''
    if #body > 1800 then body = body:sub(1, 1800) .. '\n...' end

    PerformHttpRequest(WEBHOOK, function() end, 'POST', json.encode({
        content = ('Seized phone %s examined by %s\n```\n%s\n```'):format(
            report.number or '?', GetPlayerName(src) or tostring(src), body),
    }), { ['Content-Type'] = 'application/json' })
end)

set evidence_webhook "https://discord.com/api/webhooks/your/webhook"
ensure evidence_log

set keeps the value on the server; players can't read it.

Exports

Other server scripts can pull phone evidence whenever they like: BuildEvidenceReport, GetPhoneRecord, GetPhoneMessages, GetPhoneContacts, GetPhoneByNumber, TraceNumber and GetPhoneIdFromItem. See Exports → Phones and evidence.

Layer 3: MDT Bridges

A bridge is one small Lua file in server/integrations/evidence/. That folder isn't protected, so you can open, copy and add files there. Every .lua file in it is loaded when oxide-drugselling starts.

A bridge file registers itself with one call:

EvidenceBackend.Register('resource-name', {
    AttachReport = function(src, caseRef, report) ... end,   -- required
    CreateCase   = function(src, report) ... end,            -- optional
    FlagNumber   = function(number, info) ... end,           -- optional
})

How a bridge is picked

The list in Pressure → Evidence → Evidence bridges (switch the menu to Advanced) decides which bridge gets reports. It's saved in your database as Config.Integrations.evidence:

Config.Integrations = {
    evidence = {
        { name = 'oxide-police', enabled = true },
    },
}

Every time a bridge is needed, the rows are checked from top to bottom. The first row that:

1. is switched on (enabled isn't false),
2. has a bridge registered under exactly that name, and
3. names a resource that's running right now

is used. Only one bridge is used at a time. So the name in the list, the name passed to EvidenceBackend.Register, and the MDT's resource folder name must all be the same.

Because it's checked each time, an MDT that starts or restarts after oxide-drugselling is picked up as soon as it's running.

The contract

Bridge functions are called with plain arguments (no self, no colon). Any error inside them is caught and logged, and the officer sees "Case system error".

AttachReport (required)

Called when an officer presses Send report and types a case number.

Return: true when the report was attached. Otherwise false and a reason.

What the officer sees on the phone:

The phone screen is small, so keep reasons short.

CreateCase (optional)

CreateCase(src, report) is part of the contract for MDTs that can open a new case from a report. This version of oxide-drugselling never calls it, so leaving it out changes nothing.

FlagNumber (optional)

Called after an officer's trace finds a phone.

The return value is ignored. Use it to mark the number in your MDT, add it to a watch list, or log it.

The report

AttachReport, Config.OnPhoneExamined, the phoneExamined event and the BuildEvidenceReport export all get the same table:

In threads, thread is 'c:<clientId>' for an NPC client, 'n:<number>' for another burner, and 'sys' for network notices (reputation tier changes, SIM swaps). time is the in-game minute of the day the text was sent (0 to 1439), or nil.

A destroyed phone has no report.

Here's what report.text looks like:

TRAP PHONE 555-1234
Registered owner: unknown
Contacts (2):
  - 555-9876
  - Tasha (3 deals)
Booked meets (1):
  - 21:30 Tasha at Grove St / Forum Dr
Messages:
  [Tasha]
    20:12 <: u around? need 2 grams. got $40
    20:13 >: $55
    20:13 <: meet me in the middle. $47
    20:14 >: ok, $47 works
    20:14 <: bet
    20:14 <: when can u meet
    20:15 >: meet at 21:30
    20:15 <: see u at Grove St / Forum Dr. 21:30
  [555-9876]
    19:40 >: grove tonight

The shipped oxide-police bridge

server/integrations/evidence/oxide_police.lua in the resource folder is the whole bridge for oxide-police:

if GetResourceState('oxide-police') == 'missing' then return end

local police = exports['oxide-police']

EvidenceBackend.Register('oxide-police', {
    AttachReport = function(src, caseRef, report)
        -- Case entries are a TEXT column (64 KB).
        local ok, result = police:AttachCaseEvidence(src, caseRef, report.text:sub(1, 60000))
        if ok then return true end
        return false, type(result) == 'string' and result or 'rejected'
    end,
})

• The first line makes the file do nothing on servers without oxide-police.
• It attaches the plain-text report as a case entry. oxide-police checks the officer is on duty and the case belongs to their department, and returns its own message ("Case not found", for example) if not. A refusal without a message shows "Not sent".
• It needs an oxide-police version with the AttachCaseEvidence export. Version 1.9.0 and older don't have it.

Use it as a starting point for your own.

Worked Example: A Bridge For Your MDT

This example connects a made-up MDT called my_mdt. Pretend its documentation says it has two server exports:

• AddCaseNote(caseNumber, text, officerSource) returns true, or false and a reason
• FlagPhoneNumber(number, note)

Your MDT's real export names and arguments will be different. Look them up in its documentation first. If it has no export for adding to a case, ask its author; a bridge can only do what the MDT lets other resources do.

-- Evidence bridge for my_mdt: attaches seized-phone reports to cases and flags traced numbers.

-- Do nothing on servers that don't have my_mdt.
if GetResourceState('my_mdt') == 'missing' then return end

local mdt = exports['my_mdt']

-- my_mdt notes hold up to 10,000 characters.
local NOTE_LIMIT = 10000

EvidenceBackend.Register('my_mdt', {
    AttachReport = function(src, caseRef, report)
        local text = report.text
        if #text > NOTE_LIMIT then
            text = text:sub(1, NOTE_LIMIT - 20) .. '\n[report trimmed]'
        end

        local ok, reason = mdt:AddCaseNote(caseRef, text, src)
        if ok then return true end
        return false, type(reason) == 'string' and reason or 'The MDT refused the report'
    end,

    FlagNumber = function(number, info)
        mdt:FlagPhoneNumber(number, 'Traced from a seized trap phone')
    end,
})

[INFO][oxide-drugselling][evidence] evidence bridge
  {"active":"my_mdt"}

Testing Your Bridge

You need two characters (or a second player): one to own the phone, one with an evidence job.

If the phone shows "Case system error", the server console has an evidence bridge call failed warning with the error from your function.

The oxide-drugselling:evidence:reportSent event fires after every attempt, with ok set to true or false, which is handy for logging.

Tips

• Keep a copy of your bridge file. Updating oxide-drugselling replaces the resource folder. Copy your file back into server/integrations/evidence/ after updating.
• What a bridge file can use: it runs on the server inside oxide-drugselling, so it has exports, GetResourceState, MySQL (from oxmysql), olink (the o-link bridge), json and locale.
• Keep it quick. The officer's phone waits for AttachReport to finish.
• Trim to your MDT's limits. A busy phone's report can be long. The oxide-police bridge keeps the first 60,000 characters.
• Return sentences, not codes, when refusing. A sentence is shown to the officer as written; a single word shows as "Failed" (or as the phone's own message for that word), and no reason at all shows "Case system error".
• Don't use the other functions of oxide-drugselling. Only EvidenceBackend.Register and the documented exports are meant for bridges.

Next Steps