Look At

Look At - Multimodal File Analysis

Multi-backend vision router for images, PDFs, video, diagrams and other media. Defaults to agy -p on gemini-3.7-flash-high — Gemini via Antigravity OAuth, unmetered — which reads images, PDFs and video natively. Audio auto-routes to the metered api backend, the only one that handles it. Three further unmetered CLI backends (claude-code -p, codex exec, Copilot on GPT-5.4) give independent second opinions.

Tool Selection Enforcement

Tool Routing Facts

• Read on a media file loads the full content into context regardless of how briefly you look at it — a "quick glance" costs the same thousands of tokens as a full read. Content type, not file size, determines the tool.
• Read on a PDF extracts raw text and loses table structure and visual information; look_at returns it as structured data.
• The point is context economy, not vision capability. Read pulls the whole image into this session's context; look_at spends a subprocess's context instead and returns text. Better vision models do not change that arithmetic — they make the cheap backends sufficient.
• Backend extraction is accurate for most use cases — start with look_at, escalate to Read only if the extraction is insufficient. Defaulting to Read "for exact text" wastes the context this skill exists to save.
• The claude backend spawns a child claude-code -p. look_at.sh sets LOOK_AT_NESTED=1 so image-read-guard.ts stands down inside that child — without it the guard denies the child's Read and points it back at look_at.sh, which spawns another child. That is unbounded recursion, not a slow call.

Red Flags

• Passing an image, PDF, or screenshot path to Read → use look_at.
• A text-based PDF with structure/tables/charts → still look_at, not Read.

Cost & Context Benefits

look_at saves 80-95% of context tokens by extracting only relevant information.

When to Use

Use look_at when you need:

• Media files the Read tool cannot interpret
• Extracting specific information or summaries from documents
• Describing visual content in images or diagrams
• Analyzing charts, tables, or structured data in PDFs
• When analyzed/extracted data is needed, not raw file contents

Never use look_at when:

• Source code or plain text files needing exact contents (use Read)
• Files that need editing afterward (need literal content from Read)
• Simple file reading where no interpretation is needed
• Exact formatting or structure must be preserved

How It Works

1. Provide a file path and a specific goal (what to extract)
2. look_at.sh routes to the selected backend (agy / gemini-3.7-flash-high by default)
3. The backend analyzes the file and extracts requested information
4. Only the relevant extracted information is returned (saves context tokens)

Usage Pattern

CRITICAL - Display Requirement: Always set the Bash tool description parameter to show a clean invocation:

description: "look-at: [goal text]"

# Default (agy — gemini-3.7-flash-high via Antigravity OAuth, unmetered)
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "/path/to/file.pdf" \
    --goal "Extract the title and date from this document"

# A different model family (agy, codex, copilot all work the same way)
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "/path/to/diagram.png" \
    --goal "Describe the architecture" \
    --backend codex

# Four independent looks at once (claude, agy, codex, copilot)
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "/path/to/diagram.png" \
    --goal "Score this diagram 0-10" \
    --consensus

# PDFs and video need no flags — agy reads both natively
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "/path/to/file.pdf" \
    --goal "Extract the table data"

# Agentic mode — adds code execution for harder visual reasoning (api backend only)
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "/path/to/file.pdf" \
    --goal "Extract the table data" \
    --agentic

${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR} is substituted at skill load time, so the full path is already resolved — no per-call discovery needed.

IMPORTANT:

• Always use absolute paths for files
• Always set Bash tool description to "look-at: [goal]" for clean UX

Backends

claude, not claude-code, is the backend name; claude-code is the binary it runs. Plain claude would bill this session's own account — claude-code routes through CLIProxyAPI to the pooled OAuth accounts, which is the cost this backend exists to avoid.

Only claude ingests PDFs directly. agy and copilot get page PNGs from pdftoppm; codex gets every page attached as a separate -i.

The old gemini backend is gone — it billed like api despite being documented as bundled quota, and the consumer gemini binary was sunset 2026-06-18. Unmetered Gemini now comes from agy (Antigravity OAuth), which is the default. gemini-code is NOT usable here: on Claude Code 2.1.238 it exits 0 having produced no output, rejecting its own default model as unrecognized_model even though the proxy serves it.

Consensus Mode

--consensus runs a comma-separated list of backends in parallel and outputs each result under a labeled header (=== CLAUDE (claude-code) ===, === AGY (Antigravity) ===, …). The list is optional and defaults to all four CLI backends:

--consensus                            # claude,agy,codex,copilot
--consensus claude,codex               # narrow it to two

Wall-clock is the slowest backend, not the sum — they run concurrently.

A failed backend prints [ERROR] <name> backend failed followed by its output; the others still report, and the exit status stays 0.

When to use: Visual verification of diagrams where a single model may miss or underscore defects. Trust the stricter score — if any backend flags BLOCKING, treat it as BLOCKING.

Response Rules

When using look_at, the response includes:

• Only the extracted information matching the goal
• Clear statement if requested information is not found
• Concise output focused on the goal (no preamble)

Use this extracted information directly in continued work without loading the full file into context.

Supported File Types

Model Options (api backend only)

These apply to --backend api, which is metered. The claude backend takes --model as a Claude model alias; copilot is pinned to GPT-5.4.

Default is gemini-3.7-flash at thinking_level=high (the value in look_at.py).

Agentic Vision Mode (api backend only)

For complex visual reasoning tasks, use the --agentic flag to enable code execution. This allows Gemini to:

• Zoom into specific regions of an image for detailed analysis
• Count objects precisely using programmatic analysis
• Perform calculations on visual data (measurements, statistics)
• Process structured data in images (charts, tables) with higher accuracy

When to use --agentic:

• Counting objects in an image ("How many items are in this photo?")
• Reading fine details ("What does the small text in the corner say?")
• Analyzing charts with specific data points ("What's the exact value for Q3?")
• Complex spatial reasoning ("Which element is closest to the center?")

Usage:

"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "photo.jpg" \
    --goal "Count the number of people in this image" \
    --agentic

Note: Agentic mode adds code execution to whichever model is selected; gemini-3.7-flash supports it, so it no longer forces a different model.

Common Patterns

REMEMBER: Always use description: "look-at: [goal]" in the Bash tool call.

Extract Specific Information

# Bash tool call with:
# description: "look-at: Extract the executive summary section"
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "report.pdf" \
    --goal "Extract the executive summary section"

Describe Visual Content

# Bash tool call with:
# description: "look-at: List all UI elements and their layout"
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "screenshot.png" \
    --goal "List all UI elements and their layout"

Analyze Diagrams

# Bash tool call with:
# description: "look-at: Explain the data flow and component relationships"
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "architecture.png" \
    --goal "Explain the data flow and component relationships"

Extract Structured Data

# Bash tool call with:
# description: "look-at: Extract the table data as JSON"
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "table.pdf" \
    --goal "Extract the table data as JSON with columns: name, value, date"

Count Objects (Agentic)

# Bash tool call with:
# description: "look-at: Count the number of people in the photo"
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "crowd.jpg" \
    --goal "Count the number of people visible in this image" \
    --agentic

Analyze Chart Details (Agentic)

# Bash tool call with:
# description: "look-at: Extract specific data points from the chart"
"${CLAUDE_SKILL_DIR}/scripts/look_at.sh" \
    --file "quarterly_chart.png" \
    --goal "Extract the exact values for each quarter and calculate the year-over-year change" \
    --agentic

Environment Setup

The four CLI backends need nothing beyond their own binaries being installed and signed in (claude-code, agy, codex, copilot). No API key, no Python environment. agy, codex and copilot additionally need pdftoppm (poppler-utils) to accept a PDF.

Only --backend api needs setup, and only because it is metered:

export GOOGLE_API_KEY="your-api-key-here"   # or GEMINI_API_KEY

look_at.sh launches it with uv run --script, which honours look_at.py's inline PEP 723 metadata and provisions google-genai itself — uv run python3 does not, and fails at the import with a message that reads like an auth problem.

Cost Optimization

• claude, agy, codex and copilot are subscription backends — none bills per call. api is the only metered path; reach for it only when you need agentic mode.
• Only extracts requested information (saves on output tokens)
• Avoids loading full files into main conversation context
• Use specific goals to minimize unnecessary processing

Troubleshooting

Examples

See examples/ directory for:

• analyze_pdf.sh - PDF document extraction
• describe_image.sh - Image analysis
• extract_table.sh - Structured data extraction

Related Skills

• /gemini-batch - For batch processing of many files
• Standard Read tool - For text files needing exact contents