Image previews#

Automexia is designed to show supported terminal graphics and give local image paths a quick, controlled preview. Exact behavior will be confirmed with each Early Access executable.

Inline terminal graphics#

An image-aware program can send a supported terminal graphics sequence. The image remains part of the owning terminal pane and moves with its output.

The planned protocol families are:

Kitty Graphics;
iTerm2 inline images;
Sixel.

Support for a protocol does not guarantee that every third-party application recognizes Automexia automatically. If a tool supports an explicit graphics adapter, select the documented Kitty, iTerm2, or Sixel mode instead of changing terminal identity variables to impersonate another application.

Preview a local image path#

Automexia can show a quick preview for a supported local raster path already visible in terminal output. The preview is a user-interface overlay; it does not change the shell command or terminal scrollback.

Hover a supported image path briefly to see a temporary preview.
Click the path to pin the preview.
Use arrow keys to move between visible image paths while pinned.
Press Esc or click outside to close it.
Select a path and use the documented preview shortcut for keyboard access.
Open Preview Selected Image from the command palette when you do not remember the shortcut.

Paths with spaces, relative paths, absolute paths, and Unicode names are supported when they resolve to a safe local file. WSL paths may be translated through the selected distribution when the session identity is known.

Supported files#

Quick Look is intended for common raster formats such as BMP, GIF, ICO, JPEG, PNG, PNM, TIFF, and WebP.

SVG, PDF, remote URLs, directories, symbolic links, pipes, and device files are not opened by Quick Look. Use an explicit trusted application for those formats. Animated images may show a static preview frame; the terminal graphics client owns richer playback behavior.

Mouse-reporting applications#

A full-screen terminal application can own mouse events. Automexia does not silently steal those events. Use the platform's documented host-interface modifier when you intentionally want to select or preview a terminal path.

Hover does not capture arrow keys. Keyboard navigation begins only after an explicit pin or preview action.

Layout behavior#

The preview keeps the image's aspect ratio and does not stretch a small image to fill the card. Large images are reduced to a bounded preview size. The card moves away from pane edges where possible and closes instead of covering an unusable terminal area.

Resizing the window recalculates the card position. Scrolling, replacing the session, starting terminal selection, ordinary typing, or an explicit close can dismiss the preview.

Security and performance limits#

Terminal output can contain untrusted text, even when it comes from a local command. Image preview therefore follows these boundaries:

no file is read merely because a path-like string appears;
a stable hover or explicit user action is required;
URL schemes and unsafe path types are rejected;
files, dimensions, decoded pixels, and memory use are bounded;
reading and decoding happen away from terminal input and rendering work;
a changed file is not reused as if it were the same cached image;
newer requests replace stale queued work for the same window;
preview state is isolated between windows and sessions;
cached thumbnails use bounded entry and memory limits;
closing a preview removes active image resources promptly.

These limits protect responsiveness and reduce the effect of damaged or hostile files. They do not make every image safe, so preview only files you intended to access.

If a preview does not open#

Confirm that:

the file exists and is readable;
the complete path is selected;
the format is supported;
the path is local and points to a regular file;
the file is within the release's size and dimension limits;
a mouse-reporting application is not receiving the pointer action.

Continue with Troubleshooting when the same safe image fails repeatedly.