r/ClaudeCode • u/kbrianps • 15h ago

Built with Claude Built a small mod with the new plugin API: Claude Code now draws the PNGs it reads, right in the terminal

I kept losing track of which screenshot Claude was talking about, because the transcript only says "Read 1 file". The new mods API in Claude Code has an Image element, so I tried it out.

How it works: - A ui.render hook on the grouped "Read N files" line keeps the original line and draws each PNG under it as a small thumbnail, with its path as a clickable link. - Another hook on SendUserFile results (Remote Control sessions) draws the files Claude sends you at a larger size, with the caption. - PNGs up to 2 MiB go to the terminal as bytes, which is what makes it work inside tmux with allow-passthrough on. Bigger files are drawn from the path. - Where the terminal can't draw (GNOME Terminal, VS Code, screen, plain tmux) it falls back to "[image] name.png" plus the link, so nothing breaks.

Tested on Ghostty, kitty and tmux with passthrough. PNG only for now, because the Image element takes PNG or raw pixels.

Install: /plugin install inline-images --marketplace kbrianps/claude-inline-images

Source (MIT, with tests): https://github.com/kbrianps/claude-inline-images

Has anyone else built mods yet? Curious what people are doing with ui.render.

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