Terminal Image Rendering

Terminal Image Rendering

Images in the terminal — no file explorer needed.

VS Code 1.110+ supports the Kitty graphics protocol for rendering images directly in the integrated terminal. Enable with terminal.integrated.enableImages: true.

Quick Start

# Verify the setting is enabled
# Settings → terminal.integrated.enableImages → true

# Display an image using imgcat (if installed)
imgcat assets/banner.png

# Or use a Node.js script with kitty escape sequences
node -e "const fs=require('fs');const b=fs.readFileSync('assets/banner.png').toString('base64');process.stdout.write('\x1b_Gf=100,a=T;'+b+'\x1b')"

Supported Methods

Use Cases for the AI assistant

Preview Generated Banners

After running banner generation scripts, preview results without leaving the terminal:

node scripts/generate-readme-banners.js
# Then preview the output:
imgcat assets/banner-main.png

Display Architecture Diagrams

Render diagram visualizations inline during development:

node scripts/generate-diagram-visualizations.js
imgcat diagram-visualization/cognitive-architecture.png

Visual QA for Brand Assets

Quick-check brand assets without opening files:

# Check all banner variants
for f in assets/banner-*.png; do echo "=== $f ==="; imgcat "$f"; done

Avatar State Preview

View the AI assistant's cognitive state avatars during development:

imgcat assets/states/meditation.png
imgcat assets/states/debugging.png

Node.js Helper

For cross-platform terminal image display without external tools:

const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');

function displayInTerminal(imagePath) {
  const data = fs.readFileSync(imagePath);
  const base64 = data.toString('base64');
  // Kitty graphics protocol: transmit and display
  process.stdout.write(`\x1b_Gf=100,a=T;${base64}\x1b\\`);
  process.stdout.write('\n');
}

// Usage: node display.js assets/banner.png
const file = process.argv[2];
if (file && fs.existsSync(file)) {
  displayInTerminal(file);
} else {
  console.error('Usage: node display.js <image-path>');
}

Settings

Limitations

• File size: Large images (>10MB) may be slow to render
• Format: PNG, JPEG, GIF supported; SVG must be converted first
• Terminal width: Images scale to terminal width — wide terminals show more detail
• SSH remotes: May not work over SSH unless the remote terminal supports Kitty protocol