Previews

Inline previews

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Inline previews

gifgrep ships GIF bytes into your terminal so you can see results without leaving the shell. There are two protocols at play.

TerminalProtocolTUI animationCLI --thumbs
KittyKitty graphicsNative, hardwareStill frame
GhosttyKitty graphicsSoftware (frame ticks)Still frame
iTerm2OSC 1337 (Inline Images)Native (raw GIF)Animated thumb
WezTermKitty graphics (subset)Best-effortStill frame
Apple TerminalNeitherFalls back to textNo thumbs

The CLI never outputs image bytes when stdout is a pipe — only on a TTY.

#Kitty graphics

Used by Kitty and Ghostty. The escape envelope:

ESC _G <key=value;...> ; <base64 payload> ESC \

gifgrep uses these actions:

ActionWhat it does
a=TUpload a base image (PNG bytes).
a=fAppend an animation frame with per-frame delay.
a=aSet animation timing / start playback.
a=pPlace an image into a cell rectangle.
a=dDelete an image by id (cleanup on scroll/quit).

Each PNG payload is base64 encoded and chunked into 4096-character pieces to stay under terminal limits.

Kitty plays the animation natively once frames are uploaded.

Ghostty does not yet animate Kitty graphics natively, so gifgrep falls back to software playback: it ticks frames on a timer and re-uploads the current frame each time. That's the GIFGREP_SOFTWARE_ANIM knob:

GIFGREP_SOFTWARE_ANIM=1 gifgrep tui cats   # always tick in software
GIFGREP_SOFTWARE_ANIM=0 gifgrep tui cats   # always trust terminal animation

By default, software playback is auto-enabled when Ghostty is detected.

Cell aspect ratio for sizing previews:

GIFGREP_CELL_ASPECT=0.5 gifgrep tui cats   # default
GIFGREP_CELL_ASPECT=0.45 gifgrep tui cats  # tweak if previews look squashed

Reference: https://sw.kovidgoyal.net/kitty/graphics-protocol/.

#iTerm2 (OSC 1337)

iTerm2 has its own protocol — it accepts the original file bytes directly:

ESC ] 1337 ; File = <key=value;...> : <base64 file bytes> ESC \

Keys gifgrep sets:

  • name — base64-encoded filename (used for the iTerm2 download tray).
  • size — bytes (drives the progress indicator).
  • inline=1 — render inline rather than queueing a download.
  • width / height — sized in terminal cells, not pixels.
  • preserveAspectRatio — 1 in the TUI; 0 when filling a fixed CLI thumbnail block.

iTerm2 plays animated GIFs natively, so the TUI sends the preview GIF bytes for each result and lets iTerm2 animate them.

Reference: https://iterm2.com/documentation-images.html.

#Detection

gifgrep decides which protocol to use from environment hints:

  • iTerm2: TERM_PROGRAM=iTerm.app or ITERM_SESSION_ID.
  • Ghostty: TERM_PROGRAM=ghostty or GHOSTTY_RESOURCES_DIR.
  • Kitty: TERM=xterm-kitty (or compatible).
  • Sixel: TERM contains sixel, TERM_PROGRAM=WezTerm, or WT_SESSION.

Truecolor ANSI fallback is opt-in:

GIFGREP_INLINE=ansi    # render GIF frames as terminal color blocks

Override:

GIFGREP_INLINE=kitty   # force Kitty graphics
GIFGREP_INLINE=iterm   # force OSC 1337
GIFGREP_INLINE=sixel   # force DEC Sixel
GIFGREP_INLINE=ansi    # force truecolor ANSI fallback
GIFGREP_INLINE=off     # disable inline previews entirely

#Diagnostics

If previews look wrong:

gifgrep --version
echo "$TERM $TERM_PROGRAM"
gifgrep tui cats -vv               # very verbose stderr

Common gotchas:

  • Pipes never get image bytes. Inline previews only render to a TTY.
  • tmux can pass through Kitty graphics with the right config, but it's terminal-dependent. set -ga terminal-features ',xterm-256color:hyperlinks' and friends help, but expect rough edges.
  • SSH works as long as the destination terminal speaks the protocol; the bytes flow through the pipe.
  • TUI — keys, behaviour, when to reach for it.
  • Search --thumbs — still-frame inline thumbs in pipe-shaped CLI output.