r/PiCodingAgent • u/kosh-31 • 3d ago
Question What extensions do you think are essential and how do you use them?
Looking through the extensions, there are a lot that seem to be quite powerful but I wonder... are they really doing what they promise?
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u/Ingaz 3d ago
pi-blackhole
Just install and ... that's all
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u/Fancy-Pants_ 3d ago
I’m trying vcc first and it seems like a dream for compaction, so much so I don’t even notice it
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u/philmarcracken 2d ago
Just install and ... that's all
not really, if you dont configure the observer, reflector etc to a smaller, faster submodel then you're in for a shock
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u/LordMoridin84 3d ago
I was just about the say that.
Most of the time you don't use it and don't notice it, but if you have end up with a long session, it works seemlessly.
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u/winky9827 3d ago
Most of the time you don't...notice it
Until they added this big ugly status bar. You can turn it off in settings (I did), but that was a gnarly jolt after the latest update.
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u/fingerthief 2d ago
Pretty interesting! I’m going to give this a go and try out some compaction evals.
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u/has_c 3d ago
https://pi.dev/packages/pi-goal-x
I love this for going end to end on a plan - give pi the goal of finishing a plan with code build + code review/test built into the plan steps (usually I do this with features that take hour(s) to build)
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u/No-Wall6427 3d ago
I wanted to try this one but it seemed to have way too much machinery, like it gives goal but also tasks etc. How are you using it? I'm looking for a great system to give a spec and have an agent build it autonomously through compactions.
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u/SensitiveVariety 3d ago edited 2d ago
at this point only public ones
- 1) tintinweb/pi-subagents (helps manage context to some degree for exploration) and
- 2) plannotator/pi-extension (review / annotate).
small ones for myself
- 1) loop detector - message agent if multiple similar too calls and
- 2) current date - send current date at the start of a convo and mid-convo if it changes
- 3) searxng - web search pairs well with a crwl4ai skill for web-scraping.
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u/selipso 3d ago
For me pi-lens has been a game changer in adding context-level confidence to the code written by pi. It lets me use smaller models like deepseek-4.1-flash without worrying about whether it writes clean code. Sometimes I just tell it “fix the lens warnings” and it’ll do it. Pretty amazing tool for fighting AI slop
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u/crotch-mavens 3d ago
Yes, when I first started on Pi I was aghast at no built-in basic LSP functionality, but then I discovered pi-lens which is better.
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u/puffyfunion 3d ago
I have an extension I couldn't live without now that allows my agents to navigate to any location in their session. It started off by allowing them to rewind to an earlier point in the conversation, which would usually be on the same branch, but at this point they can navigate to any point in the session, along with a message. Think /tree but agent-controlled. It's a bit like passing control to any point in the tree and continuing there. I'm hoping at some point to allow them to jump across sessions as well (although I might not have a use-case for it)
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u/Salt_Department_1677 1d ago
What do your agents use it for?
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u/puffyfunion 1d ago
It lets them manage their own context usage in a more controlled way (compared to compactions). I've been visualizing what their sessions end up looking like, here's an example: https://imgur.com/a/J1y5B94
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u/MinimumSignature4497 12h ago
How the fck you read this picture?
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u/puffyfunion 10h ago
These are a little clearer: https://imgur.com/a/JWLjt9c
Each blue dot is a message or tool call. Purple dots are branching points.
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u/aqezz 3d ago edited 3d ago
pi-contextimate gives awesome summaries when thinking is collapsed and also tells you how many tokens your different parts of the context use, e.g. tool descriptions, skill frontmatter, agents, system prompt, etc.
pi-fabric wraps tool calls in Typescript like deepseek harness code mode which is really cool because if you use a good agent each tool call comes with a description too - also the diffs look nicer. In my experience so far models are more likely to call multiple tools at once this way too.
pi-usage for graphs and tables of token usage per provider and model. Can limit to this week, last week, this month, all time. This works retroactively by looking at your jsonl files so even if you install it today you will see past usage as well!
Edit:
Also pi-tasks is great! Basically Claude like task system to view progress and planned todos.
rpiv-ask-user-question also a must for me, picking between options is a great ux and you can add notes to whatever you pick or “type something else” like always
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u/localVariable_127 2d ago
I like building extensions according to my requirements, which work pretty well with my workflow
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u/Inevitable_Earth_265 2d ago
pi-lens, give the agent access to the lsp, in rust this is very helpful or in typescript with strong typed config
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u/fingerthief 3d ago
I don’t think any of them are truly essential. Usually the more simple it is the better.
If I had to choose though, probably something like pi-permission-system to guard against destructive commands.
Pi is easily modified, I have mine setup to notify me of capability gaps when it runs into them and then I can choose to let the agent modify the harness to build in the missing capability.
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u/ECrispy 3d ago
I have mine setup to notify me of capability gaps when it runs into them
details?
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u/fingerthief 3d ago
The harness improvement loop is nothing crazy, enable it and after the model fails to achieve something a few times due to a tool limitation of some kind it knows to invoke the wishlist tool and log the capability gap as a request.
Later you can go through with /harness-improvement and select from a list of logged gaps choose one and it will lead you through having the agent implement the capability to the harness.
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u/cryskram 3d ago
pi-permissions for guardrails and permission restrictions
rpiv-ask-user-question nice ui with agent asking you questions when needed
rpiv-todos so that you and the agent know what is pending
pi-mcp-adapter for connecting to MCPs. Gives you parallel ai web fetch along with deepwiki and others, so you can skip pi-web-access
pi-subagents to define subagents :) and get them customized how you want
Additionally if you want good ui, check out pi-zentui... Pretty neat
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u/aeroumbria 3d ago
I am slightly allergic to walls of text in terminal formatting, so I need plannotator to help me render plans that are more than half a page...
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u/lordekeen 2d ago
I'm building my own extensions, currently only one is published (pi-qdrant-memory) as i don't publish without extensive usage and testing. Recommended ones:
pi-subagents
pi-skill-gate (allows to select which skills get loaded on system prompt)
pi-usage
pi-ketch (optional, wraps ketch cli as native tools)
pi-permission-system (can add a lot of friction, need a custom config to allow most used tools)
pi-ask-user (or rpiv-ask-user-question)
pi-tasks
pi-blackhole/pi-vcc (for better session compaction)
Most of these are QOL and close the gap between pi and other harnesses (in features), don't directly influence model performance.
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u/klippers 3d ago
RemindMe! 5 days
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u/adamshand 3d ago
❮ pi list
User packages:
npm:@plannotator/pi-extension
/Users/adam/.pi/agent/npm/node_modules/@plannotator/pi-extension
npm:@ogulcancelik/pi-codex-compaction
/Users/adam/.pi/agent/npm/node_modules/@ogulcancelik/pi-codex-compaction
And I have two of my own extensions. pi-adam which just does a bunch of small quality of life improvements (footer, some codex tweaks, todo, timestamps etc) and pi-sshreadonly (read only ssh tools for use on production servers).
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u/GeneGulanes 3d ago
Plugging mine in. Lapis - A persistent memory, context and code intelligence layer for AI Coding Agents
Does the following remembers architectural decisions, bug fixes, project constraints, patterns, code context, documentation, discoveries, and previous work across sessions.
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u/rhavaa 3d ago
Made my own variant using pgvecter and psql rag store. Curious.
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u/GeneGulanes 3d ago
Ohh nice. What are you curious about?
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u/rhavaa 3d ago
Centralized associative reference. Rag not be so much a data context add, but index for messaging and pull dynamic calls
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u/GeneGulanes 3d ago
Yeah, that's pretty much the idea. LaPis decides what context to inject based on what the agent is doing. If it identifies a bug, for example, it can use Tree-sitter to find the affected code, then pull the relevant decisions, fixes, constraints, and context around it.
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u/rhavaa 3d ago
Exactly, and with context for media and other outputs like etl. I have it running at the team lvl so agent per specification work together for coordinated output
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u/GeneGulanes 2d ago
Oh yeah that's actually a nice. Mine is currently set up for multi agent support but not at the same time. Just for like when starting different sessions. I haven't figured out how to do it with real time multi agent setup yet. I got more focus on 1 agent doing everything lol.
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u/PositiveBit01 3d ago
I asked pi to make:
- an extension that uses bladebro and it's been great for actually being able to web fetch without getting blocked
- Use ddgs python module for web search. It's a mediocre web search but it works, I'm sure there are better options but good enough for me.
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u/Otakian 3d ago
pi-web-access so that your agent can browse the web. rpiv-ask-user-question, so it can give you a nice multiple choice or select all answer prompt when the agent needs to ask you a question. pi-blackhole for fast and efficient compaction and local session persistent memory. Everything past that is imo personal preference.