# Pictures, both ways

> Send a screenshot into the thread, and get renders back in it — the agent posts what it made, not a description of it.

Most of what goes wrong with an agent's work is visual, and most of it is
invisible in a diff.

## Sending one

Attach a picture to a message: a screenshot of the bug, a photo of a whiteboard,
a design somebody sent you. It goes into the thread and the agent looks at it.

On a phone this is the fastest way to explain almost anything. "This, but the
spacing is wrong" with a screenshot beats three paragraphs.

## Getting them back

An agent that changed something visual can post the render **with its answer**,
in the thread you are already reading. A chart it drew, a screen it built, a
page it changed — the picture is in the message.

![the end of an answer, with the render of the run that produced it in the thread](https://beafk.app/docs-shots/pictures.webp)

Tap one to see it full size.

This is one switch on the machine — **settings → skills**, the built-in
**post-pictures** page — and it applies to every agent it runs. There is
nothing to set up per chat.

## Why it matters

Without it, the agent says it fixed the layout and you take its word for it.
With it, the evidence is in the message and one glance tells you whether it is
right.

It is the same argument as [sketching](https://beafk.app/docs/seeing-it-before-it-is-built.md), from
the other end. A sketch is what you are shown *before* it is built; this is what
you are shown once it is.

## What can and cannot be photographed

Anything the agent can render on the machine: a web page, a chart, a generated
image, a screenshot of the app it just changed.

## Asking for pictures

You can also just ask. "Draw me four portraits for the team page", "make an icon
for this", "mock up the empty state" — the agent already in the thread does it,
and the result comes back in the thread rather than as a file you have to go and
find.

---

beafk documentation · The panel · https://beafk.app/docs/pictures-both-ways

In this section:
- The home screen — https://beafk.app/docs/the-home-screen.md
- Settings — https://beafk.app/docs/settings.md
- Pictures, both ways — https://beafk.app/docs/pictures-both-ways.md (this page)
- Seeing it before it is built — https://beafk.app/docs/seeing-it-before-it-is-built.md
- Running a line yourself — https://beafk.app/docs/the-terminal.md
- The keys a phone does not have — https://beafk.app/docs/keys-a-phone-does-not-have.md

Every page, one line each: https://beafk.app/docs/llms.txt
All of it in one file: https://beafk.app/docs/llms-full.txt