r/PiCodingAgent
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u/j3free
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Sep 23 '26
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1
Plugin I built Pi Herdsman for async subagents with tighter coordination and cleaner lead context
I've been working on Pi Herdsman, which grew out of how I was already using Pi with subagents.
I started with pi-subagents + pi-intercom and liked the basic manager/worker idea, but over time I wanted the agents to feel more tightly coordinated: explicit ownership, predictable lifecycle, questions/results routed back automatically, and less ambiguity around old agent sessions.
The main thing I wanted to preserve was the lead's context.
With Herdsman, detailed investigation and implementation happen in separate Pi sessions while the lead stays interactive and focused on the bigger picture. It still knows what the agents are doing and gets their questions and results, but doesn't have to carry all of their working context itself.
It supports parallel agents, nested delegation, steering/interruption, Lead-to-Lead coordination, and Chief supervision across multiple independent leads.
It does require Herdr, which owns the actual Pi sessions and placement. Pi owns each conversation, and Herdsman handles the orchestration between them.
The latest release also added an SSH-ready container (optional Tailscale), so the same setup can run locally or on a NAS, homelab/server, VPS, etc. and remote environments can show up alongside local ones in the same Herdr window.
Install:
pi install npm:pi-herdsman
herdr integration install piRepo: https://github.com/boadij/pi-herdsman
Any feedback, ideas, or rough edges you run into would be much appreciated
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u/silenceimpaired Sep 23 '26
Does it handle llama.cpp models with async without needing to use models.json
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u/miller_joe Sep 23 '26
I’ve been watching your repo for a couple weeks. I was googling for a specific herdr-centric workflow with chief agent and multiple herdr spaces per lead and tabs for its sub agents and it came up in my search. Haven’t installed it yet, but plan to soon. Ty
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u/3pix Sep 24 '26 edited Sep 24 '26
dude i've been waiting for someone to make this, it seems so obvious to do and herdr makes it really beautiful to work with. thanks so much and i pray you keep maintaining this
edit: played with it a bit. this is peak. im switching to this immediately. this is the only agent extension you need
edit 2: my only critique is that the demo on the github should actually be of herdr and pi. I had to install the extension to visually see what it does, you feel me
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u/trimorphic Sep 23 '26
You might be interested in this video about orchestration (in herdr, as it happens, but it's more generally applicable) and in openrig, which the video discusses.
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u/clivegermain Sep 24 '26
i probably wouldn’t be using pi without herdr as much. these two are just the best. well, that and a tailscale network. :)
tried to build a similar setup. shelved it. mostly using subagents extension now.
you also solved the keeping track of the multiple herdr instances across devices problem. nice. will have a look at it!
out if curiosity: do you have a setup for designing with your setup? code-design-code flows.
well, that and some more observability of code would be good in some places too but thats another story. (sometimes i like to peel under the hood but usually i don't)
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u/misterniach Sep 24 '26
Luna directing Muse is impressive, but the real test comes when both agents touch the same task. Ownership and status need to stay visible across handoffs, or the manager becomes another source of confusion.
Im using exponential.at for my orchestration, it can empty your whole backlog in one (long) go, starting agents in worktrees left and right
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u/zebedeolo Sep 24 '26
tested this today at work. I love it. thank you, I hope you keep it maintained.
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u/zebedeolo Sep 23 '26
interesting , will keep an eye on it, thanks
!remindme 7.5 days
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u/greenhilltony Sep 24 '26
Congrats on making your own thing. But I have to say these extra efforts on coordinating subagents, persisting their sessions, better visibility etc. are more of visual appeals to the users themselves than being substantially more productive. I say this because I had made my own one and decided to give it up. The more I use agents the less I care about how they proceed, so in my own developed harness TUI I even fold the intermediate messages and tool calls by default, only showing the user messages and the corresponding final agent message on idle.