> ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.avibe.bot/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Annotating Show Pages > Point at anything on a Show Page — an element, a region, a screenshot — and tell your agent what you mean. Answers come back on the page. A [Show Page](/concepts/show-pages) isn't a read-only handout. Annotation turns it into a two-way surface: you point at exactly what you mean — a chart, a paragraph, an empty gap that looks wrong — say a word about it, and your agent picks it up like any other message. When the answer is easier to *show* than to describe, it comes back **on the page**, pinned next to the thing you pointed at. It's the same instinct as Show Pages themselves, run in reverse: instead of the agent handing you a page, you hand the agent a spot on it. Annotation and on-page replies arrive with a recent Avibe release. If your chat has no annotation control on a Show Page, or `vibe show` doesn't list the `annotate` / `reply` / `marks` commands yet, run `vibe upgrade` and reload. ## Turn on annotation When you open a Show Page inside the [Workbench](/concepts/workbench) chat, an **Annotate** control appears in the page header, next to the button that takes you back to the conversation. It's **off by default** — the page behaves like a normal page until you turn it on. * **On desktop**, the control starts as a single icon. Activate it and it expands into a small segmented group: the **Annotate** toggle plus the two modes, **Smart** and **Screenshot**. * **On a phone**, it's one button that opens a compact popup — pick **Smart** or **Screenshot**, or **Turn off annotation**. Tapping the button turns annotation on in whichever mode you used last. Annotation opens in **Smart** mode the first time, and after that it remembers the mode you used. Press **Esc** any time to leave. While annotation is off, clicks, links, and controls on the page work exactly as before. ## Smart mode — point and say Smart mode is for pointing at what's already on the page. 1. **Click an element**, **select some text**, or **drag a box** around a region. A comment card opens, anchored to what you picked. 2. Give it an **intent** so the agent knows what kind of response you want: * **Comment** — a note or observation. * **Change** — you want this reworked. * **Question** — you're asking about it; the agent is nudged to answer right here on the page. * **Approve** — a one-tap sign-off. No typing needed. 3. Send. Your annotation lands in the chat as a message and your agent responds — reworking the page, replying on it, or answering in chat, whichever fits. Because **Approve** needs no text, signing off on something is a single tap. ## Screenshot mode — mark up a capture Sometimes the point isn't one element — it's how a few things look together. Screenshot mode captures a region and lets you mark it up. 1. **Drag a box** around the area you care about. Avibe captures it locally, in your browser — there's no screen-sharing prompt, and it works on iPhone-class devices where screen capture normally isn't available. 2. Drop **numbered comments** onto the capture — "1" here, "2" there — as many as you need. 3. **Send them together** as one batch, so the agent gets the whole picture and your notes in order. On touch, page scrolling locks while you're marking a region so your drag stays precise. Press **Esc**, or toggle annotation off, to scroll normally again. ## On a standalone page Open a Show Page on its own — a direct `/show/…` tab, or a page you've [pinned to the Dock](/concepts/apps-dock) — and there's no chat header to hang the control on. Instead a small **floating button** sits in the bottom-right corner. It opens the same modes and produces the same result: your annotation still flows back to the session's conversation, and the agent still answers. ## What happens after you send Your annotation shows up in the chat as a normal message (tagged so you can tell it came from the page) and kicks off a reply, just like anything else you send. The agent can also answer **on the page**. When it does, a **violet dot** appears next to the element you pointed at — a short reply, anchored to your question. Open it to read the answer; once you've read it, the mark **retires**: it fades to a quiet gray and won't come back on the next load. Think of these as conversation bubbles, not sticky notes that pile up forever. A few things keep the page calm: * At most **five** unread marks show inline at once. Any beyond that collect into a **badge in the bottom-right corner** whose list holds every active mark. * If the agent reworked the page and a mark's original spot is gone, that mark moves into the badge list labeled **"original location updated"** — its text is still there to read, and it's never pinned to the wrong place. ## Public pages: who can annotate When you [publish a Show Page](/concepts/show-pages) as a public `/p/…` link, the read and write sides are treated differently: * **Anyone with the link can view** the page and read the marks on it. * **Annotating requires being signed in** to the workbench in the same browser. An anonymous visitor sees the page read-only, with no annotation control. Sign in and the control appears. Every annotation records **who made it** — your workbench identity — so you and the agent can tell contributions apart. Nothing you annotate is anonymous, and public links never let a stranger write to your page. ## Answering on the page: reverse marks The second half of the loop belongs to the agent. You don't run these commands yourself — you ask for the behavior ("answer my page questions on the page", "flag anything you changed") and the agent uses the `vibe show` commands below. They're worth knowing when you're writing agent instructions, and they're the reference an agent follows. | Command | What it does | | ------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | | `vibe show reply --message "…"` | Answer a specific annotation, anchored where you pointed. Replying again to the same annotation replaces the earlier reply. | | `vibe show mark --message "…"` | Leave a proactive callout on an element — a named page anchor or a CSS selector. Marking the same target again replaces the previous note. | | `vibe show marks` | List the marks currently active on the page. | | `vibe show unmark …` | Retire one or more marks (space-separated). | | `vibe show annotate --on \| --off [--mode smart\|screenshot]` | Turn your annotation overlay on or off, or switch its mode, from the agent's side. This only steers the overlay — it never posts a chat message. | The agent barely has to construct anything: each annotation that reaches it carries its own event id, and many arrive with a ready-to-run `vibe show reply …` line. Whether to answer on the page or just edit the page content is the agent's call, per situation. An agent can also declare a note straight in the page it writes, with an `agent-note` attribute on any element it authors: ```jsx theme={null}
``` That kind of note lives and dies with the element — rewrite or remove the element and the note follows on the next render. (Named `mark-*` anchors say *where* something is; `agent-note` says *what* the agent wants to tell you about it.) **The lifecycle, in one breath:** marks are conversation bubbles. Unread ones show as a violet dot; reading one retires it for good. A reply stays paired to the annotation it answers. Agents are guided to leave only one or two marks per turn; at most five render inline and the rest fall into the badge; and a mark whose anchor no longer resolves degrades into the badge list rather than being guessed onto the wrong spot. The page carries the conversation; the chat keeps the transcript. Between the two, pointing at your agent's work and getting an answer back is just… talking. See [Show Pages](/concepts/show-pages) for everything a page can be in the first place.