vision: images are the primary channel for multimodal models (digest off by default); digest is the text-only fallback; --digest/--no-digest to override

testbed/chat.py

@@ -63,11 +63,14 @@ async def chat_loop(client: AICCClient, manifest, args: argparse.Namespace) -> i
         system_prompt=CHAT_MISSION,
         log=lambda role, msg: print(f"  [{role}] {msg}"),
         multimodal=args.vision,
+        digest=args.digest,
     )
     auto_steps = args.auto_steps
     print(f"[chat] model: {model}  (endpoint {args.base_url})")
     if controller.multimodal:
         print("[chat] vision: ON — the model sees the actual camera frames")
+    else:
+        print("[chat] vision: text-only model — frames are sent as a color-grid digest")
     print("[chat] type your commands; /help for the command list; /exit to quit\n")
 
     async def cmd_state() -> None:
@@ -422,6 +425,12 @@ def main() -> int:
         default=None,
         help="pass real camera frames to the model as images (auto-detected for local ollama)",
     )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--digest",
+        action=argparse.BooleanOptionalAction,
+        default=None,
+        help="always include the color-grid digest alongside images (off by default for multimodal models)",
+    )
     args = parser.parse_args()
     try:
         return asyncio.run(run(args))