Does BIDI streaming support image output?

[manjulayalavappara-insmed]

I am replicating bidirectional streaming for my multi-agent system. When a user asks for an image, the root agent should route the query to one of the sub-agents, which successfully returns the image as part of its response. However, this image output is not being surfaced in the final UI response.

I have tested this multiple times. Text and audio responses work perfectly, but when the user requests an image, there is no response. While checking the run_config, I noticed that response_modalities only lists text and audio; there is no mention of image support.

Expected behavior:
Input: text or audio
Output: text, audio, and image

[surajksharma07]

@manjulayalavappara-insmed BIDI streaming does support image output, but you need to explicitly include 'IMAGE' in your RunConfig.

The default response_modalities is ['AUDIO'] (see runners.py:921-922), so images get filtered out even though your sub-agent generates them.

Add this to your config: response_modalities=['TEXT', 'AUDIO', 'IMAGE'] and images will surface correctly.

Let me know if that fixes it!

Thanks!