pi - Coding Agent

There are many coding agents, but this one is mine.

Overview

Pi is a minimal terminal coding harness. A coding agent designed for customization and control, not dictating workflows.

Tagline: "There are many coding agents, but this one is mine."

Install:

npm install -g @mariozechner/pi-coding-agent

Why pi?

Philosophy: Adapt pi to your workflows, not the other way around.

Pi is aggressively extensible so it doesn't have to dictate your workflow. Features that other tools bake in can be built with extensions, skills, or installed from third-party pi packages.

What it ships with:

Powerful defaults
Minimal core
15+ providers, hundreds of models
Tree-structured sessions
Four modes: interactive, print/JSON, RPC, SDK

What it deliberately doesn't ship with:

No MCP (build CLI tools with READMEs or add via extension)
No sub-agents (build your own or install package)
No permission popups (use containers or build custom flow)
No plan mode (write to files or build via extension)
No built-in to-dos (use TODO.md or build extension)
No background bash (use tmux for observability)

Key Features

Extensibility:

TypeScript extensions with access to tools, commands, keyboard shortcuts, events, full TUI
Skills: capability packages with instructions and tools, loaded on-demand
Prompt templates: reusable prompts as Markdown files
Themes: customize appearance
Pi packages: bundle and share via npm or git

Providers & Models:

15+ providers: Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Azure, Bedrock, Mistral, Groq, Cerebras, xAI, Hugging Face, Kimi For Coding, MiniMax, OpenRouter, Ollama, more
Switch models mid-session with /model or Ctrl+L
Cycle favorites with Ctrl+P
Add custom providers via models.json or extensions

Sessions:

Tree-structured history (navigate with /tree)
All branches in single file
Filter by message type, bookmark entries
Export to HTML or share via GitHub gist

Context Engineering:

Minimal system prompt + full extensibility = real context engineering
AGENTS.md - project instructions from multiple locations
SYSTEM.md - replace or append to system prompt per-project
Compaction: auto-summarizes older messages, fully customizable
Skills: progressive disclosure without busting prompt cache
Dynamic context: extensions inject messages, filter history, implement RAG

Queuing:

Submit messages while agent works
Enter = steering message (interrupts remaining tools)
Alt+Enter = follow-up (waits until finish)

Extensions (50+ examples):

Sub-agents, plan mode, permission gates, path protection
SSH execution, sandboxing, MCP integration
Custom editors, status bars, overlays
Yes, Doom runs

Packages:

Install from npm or git: pi install npm:@foo/pi-tools
Pin versions, update all, list, configure
Test without installing: pi -e git:github.com/user/repo
Share with pi-package keyword

Four Modes

Interactive: Full TUI experience
Print/JSON: pi -p "query" for scripts, --mode json for event streams
RPC: JSON protocol over stdin/stdout for non-Node integrations
SDK: Embed pi in your apps (see clawdbot)

Keyboard Shortcuts

esc - interrupt
ctrl+c - clear (twice to exit)
ctrl+k - delete line
shift+tab - cycle thinking
ctrl+p - cycle models
ctrl+o - expand tools
ctrl+t - toggle thinking
/ - commands
! - run bash
Drop files to attach

New Home Announcement

Date: February 3, 2026
By: Mario Zechner (@badlogicgames)

"People of pi. I have good news. pi has finally found its home on pi.dev, thanks to the gracious domain donation by the wonderful people at @ssh_exe_dev. Check out their niffty VM offerings at exe.dev"

Domain donated by exe.dev (https://exe.dev)

Engagement: 468 likes, 32 reposts, 13.6K views

Community

Issues: GitHub
Discord: Community server
Docs: README and docs/

Technical Details

MIT License
By Mario Zechner & contributors
Terminal-based, minimal design
Full programmatic access via SDK/RPC
Real-world integration example: clawdbot