---
title: Visual replies
description: Agents can answer with charts, tables, checklists and interactive visuals that render right in the chat, in your theme.
sidebar:
  icon: analytics-01
---

Some answers read better as a picture. Agents in Glade can reply with visuals that appear inline in
the chat, follow your theme and font size, and stay with the turn that made them.

Ask for one in plain words: "chart the bundle size per release", "show me a table of the slowest
tests", "make a checklist for the migration".

## Native components

For common shapes, the agent publishes Glade's own components:

- **Stats** for headline numbers,
- **Bar and line charts**, each with a table for screen readers,
- **Sortable tables**,
- **Checklists** you can tick,
- **Follow-up choices** that send your pick as the next message,
- **Sliders and toggles** that recompute the stats and charts around them,
- **Tabs** that group any of the above.

These render instantly, look like the rest of Glade, and need nothing extra.

## HTML visuals

For anything the components can't express, such as diagrams, mockups or custom interactive tools,
the agent writes a self-contained HTML visual. While it writes, the chat shows the visual being
prepared.

HTML visuals run in a locked-down frame: no access to Glade, no pop-ups, downloads or form submission,
and no storage, so edits inside a visual last until you leave the chat. Hover a visual to save it or
open it larger.

## Under the hood

Visual replies are tools on Glade's `glade` MCP server, available to every agent:

| Tool                | What it does                                                                                     |
| ------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| `components_render` | Publishes a native visual from a small spec: stats, charts, tables, checklists, inputs and tabs. |
| `html_begin`        | Shows that an HTML visual is on its way, before the agent writes it.                             |
| `html_render`       | Publishes the finished HTML visual inline in the chat.                                           |
| `html_preview`      | Lets the agent screenshot a complex visual and read its console before publishing it.            |

Glade checks a `components_render` spec before it shows anything: every formula is evaluated at the
default inputs and at each slider's ends, and errors go back to the agent instead of into the chat.
`html_preview` renders in a separate, sandboxed browser that Glade downloads the first time it's used.