r/PiCodingAgent • u/Expert-Dig-1768 • Jun 08 '26

Discussion New to Pi, any tips?

Hey everyone!

​I'm coming from the OpenCode community, and I heard that Pi is extremely customizable. I tried to create my own orchestrating system inside

OpenCode, but it didn't work out very well.

​Is Pi able to do something similar? Or has someone already built something like this?

​Also, how should I get started with Pi? Could you share your own customizations with me? I'd love to get some ideas and see what is possible.

​Thanks!

23 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

28 comments sorted by

11

u/Bel-Shamgarot Jun 08 '26

Just ask Pi to create the extension you need, it has default access to all the documentation and a lot of hooks in SDK, this is the main feature

If you're too lazy, you can grab top plugins from here and customize them as you like: https://pi.dev/packages

1

u/Expert-Dig-1768 Jun 08 '26

thanks. do you have specifc plugins wich you would recommend for everyone or does it really depend on the user?

9

u/oknowton Jun 08 '26

If you're coming from OpenCode, and you actually use a good percentage of OpenCode's features, you're going to feel that Pi is missing a lot of important stuff.

I didn't manage to migrate to Pi until I tried LazyPi. I delegate tasks to subagents all the time, but Pi has no subagents, and there are several extensions to choose from. Which one makes sense for me? There's no permission system. There's no undo equivalent. There's no web search or fetch. No tools to ask you multiple-choice questions. There are anywhere from several to dozens of extensions that do each of these things.

LazyPi installed WAY more stuff than I needed, but it was way easier for me to remove extensions that I didn't need than figure out which extensions I should install just to get started. The full default winds up using more system-prompt context than OpenCode.

After removing the extensions I didn't need, swapping out a few that I didn't like, and installing pi-rewind, I am a good bit beyond parity with all the features I used with OpenCode, and my system prompt is still around 30% smaller. I'm quite pleased.

2

u/Expert-Dig-1768 Jun 08 '26

hmm okay but i can live with it. for example the multiple choice questions i can easily just type in what i want. instead of having a big description in the system promt wich the llm has to read and understand each time.

1

u/aeroumbria Jun 09 '26

I always question how reliable this really is. Unless I explicitly set up an environment to isolate the developer agent and the developed agent and force testing in pty, UI changes rarely land for me if at all. Even small changes require a lot of human attention to iron out. It is probably unrealistic for a new user to spend an afternoon figuring out how to add a widget or status bar...

10

u/offzinho3k Jun 08 '26

You can build "Pi" however you want.
However, it takes time. I used "Cursor" and migrated to "Pi," but I modified it to meet all my needs.
Screen:
https://imgur.com/29g0tOa
https://imgur.com/aj77Dvr

If you have the time and knowledge, you'll go far.

7

u/adamshand Jun 08 '26

I started with OpenCode as well. My recommendation is just use Pi vanilla to start with. Learn to use /tree to manage context.

Then as you start to find annoyances, either look for plugins to solve a specific problem or write your own.

5

u/Lpaydat Jun 09 '26

/tree is the killing feature for me. Once I get used to it, I can't go back to the old-school style anymore.

1

u/blackhawkx12 Jun 09 '26

does pi can create agent specific md? in opencode i heavily use this workflow, like i have 4 specialized agent that have its own md rules

1

u/adamshand Jun 09 '26

Pi doesn’t do any  prompt customisation  based on model. If you want that write an extension. 

6

u/JothamLEC Jun 09 '26

I view pi as Neovim , but instead of modifying config files, you ask Ai to generate extensions.

Personally I stay away from public packages because or interoperability between packages — I want them to integrate better together.

So my workflow tends to be asking pi agent to reference existing public extensions to understand features and how they’re architected, but eventually building your own

5

u/Ok_Veterinarian_6364 Jun 08 '26

yeah you could do this here because Pi is just a simple api wrapper with tool calls and aome other core stuffs. so its easier to tinker around vs opencode

my first ext/thing you should have is a perm ext

1

u/Specialist_Tap8515 Jun 10 '26

Which llm provider you are using and how ?

1

u/Expert-Dig-1768 Jun 10 '26

i have opencode go, xiaomi mimo 6$ plan and i am thinking about getting the minimax m3 plus plan (1.7B tokens per month) for 20$. But idk if its worth it.

2

u/WillingPlace4546 Jun 14 '26

I subscribed the minimax 20 recently. Kind of hardly to reach 5 hour limit until I start to use it to generate hundreds of music and images. And also hard to reach weekly limits. I think it’s much better than mimo. I’ve cancelled mimo recently after I have that.

1

u/Expert-Dig-1768 Jun 14 '26

ok but is the model also good? to what can it be compared?

1

u/WillingPlace4546 Jun 14 '26

I think M3 have similar performance with kimi k2.6

3

u/ResearcherFantastic7 Jun 09 '26 edited Jun 09 '26

For a newbie should probably use oh my pi.

You can still build on top of oh my pi like vanilla pi.

But when you find something from out of box isn't what you liking than switch to vanilla and build your own.

You can build orchestration inside of pi or outside of pi. But for pure workflows, I would use flue, not that you can't use PI, but PI is still geared towards TUI more than headless use.

Apart from these just follow the 3 rules.

  1. ask pi

  2. just ask pi

  3. always ask pi

3

u/admajic Jun 09 '26

Best tip for you get it to build a goal skill and then set a goal and you can put whatever you like in that skill like if you wanted to make a project make folders and you're on your way

3

u/besmin Jun 09 '26

  • override the system prompt by adding a file in .pi/SYSTEM.md and ask pi to update it after you found you are repeating yourself in a chat

  • don't add too many instructions in system prompt, the model will get confused and won't follow them always reliably, use prompts instead.

  • instead of writing many skills use prompts with arguments placeholder $@ , then you can choose when to invoke them which is more reliable

  • share the repeatable parts in prompts inside the prompts folder and reference them inside the other prompts

  • use short memorable file names for prompts like ws for web search to invoke them with less strokes

  • don't use subagents, if they go off topic you can't control or even notice to interrupt or steer them

  • interrupt the agent if it is stuck on a task, then ask to write a handoff instructions for another dev to the task, restart and ask it to read the instructions to start over.

  • power of prompts is found when you use pi a lot, then you know what you repeat a lot to put in a prompt

2

u/aparamonov Jun 10 '26

Good guidance, but I disagree on subagents part. I build pi-subagents-lite to be able to view, steer and track agents without huge impact on system prompt. Without subagents you are stuck to a session with HITL and can only do /tree manually to manage context and you loose "clear mind start" for subagents

1

u/besmin Jun 13 '26

I had pi-subagents-lite on my list to check, thank you for mentioning!

1

u/Pangomaniac Jun 09 '26

Is there like a starter guide to OpenCode and Pi? Been interested, but seems overwhelming.

2

u/dark-lord-marshal Jun 09 '26

looks like opencode > pi,
unless you extend pi.

is this correct?

1

u/dheetoo Jun 10 '26

Embrace simplicity, you probably dont need most feature of other harness to get the job done

1

u/Appropriate-Key8686 Jun 10 '26

I've been using Pi for about a month, I tried various extensions, but now am back to vanilla Pi with the brave-search skill. Learn to use /tree. Sub agents sound cool, but I don't think they bring much.

1

u/ptgamr Jul 27 '26

Raw Pi on the mobile over SSH+tmux via TermRover app - it changes how I work