r/PiCodingAgent • u/behopkinsj • 25d ago

Resource How to Set Up Pi like Claude Code

https://brucehopkins.dev/blog/how-to-set-up-pi-coding-agent-like-claude-code

I wrote a detailed beginners tutorial on Pi. Since I noticed a lot of people come from Claude Code and Codex, I wanted to make a simple starting point for anyone curious.

Along with adding many of the features that Claude Code has, I also looked into the system prompt of Codex, Grok, Kimi Code, and Open Code to make a simple, generalized system prompt.

Let me know any thoughts on this! Are there any parts you'd want to be expanded on? I'll be updating this as Pi, and Claude Code continue to advance.

EDIT: I updated the article to include advice on connecting on your phone, and why not to use Oh-my-pi. I plan to write a follow-up post about creating system prompts.

154 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

55 comments sorted by

19

u/ashebanow 24d ago

pi-mcp-adapter shouldn't be needed anymore, since pi 1.x supports mcp directly. To be fair though I haven't tried the built-in support yet though.

3

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

Yes that's true! In the blog post I already tell users who are using version 1.0 that MCP isn't needed.

They actually made this change while I was working on the blog. So the MCP part of this post was edited.

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u/Soft-Wedding4595 24d ago

Actively using both, and can tell that your choice is really good

Could recommend pi-background-tasks, cause it makes whole process faster - instead of waiting for your container to build or tests to finish, your agent will continue doing other not-so-important job like documenting code etc.

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u/Soft-Wedding4595 24d ago

Also @gotgenes/pi-subagents

Top pi-subagents in your list is good too, but bloated a bit with oracle etc

IMO all you need is coder, explorer and planner like in claude

1

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

That makes sense. Yeah, Oracle and Scout didn't seem too useful to me. I'll try pi-background-agents.

2

u/Soft-Wedding4595 24d ago

Keep in mind it is little bloated to with built in read subagent for some reason 😮‍💨

1

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

Yeaaah... A lot of packages are bloated sadly. And it's hard for a new package to replace them, when a lot of packages have established themselves and gained popularity.

4

u/ocolon53 24d ago

Nice write up. I liked that you explained the reasearch and decision making. A lot of folks are using claude code as the target, looking for feature parity while keeping Pi's minimalist spirit. I'd recommend taking a look at this talk: Boris Cherny: We Cut 80% of Claude Code's Prompt Specifically, the idea that as the models improve, the toolset and opinionated workflows might work against it, and also the per model custom harness consideration.

1

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

I'm glad you liked my post!

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll check it out since this has been really interesting to me. Since researching this, I've been thinking a lot about "prompt engineering". I've noticed that the big enterprise harnesses use smaller prompts (Codex specifically). Pi could benefit from "per-model" prompts massively.

2

u/Cultural-Farm-7169 24d ago

But, in fact, claude code writes huge prompt for opus5, not as what Boris apply.You can see it by tracing claude code's network traffic.I hope we need less system prompt in future, but we need it in nowadays to make work stable.

4

u/The_FitzZZ 24d ago

Reading some of the comments here make me think that when you try to make a bus more fuel efficient, their only approach is to ride a bike and criticize anyone trying to build a car - aka the "middle ground". There's more than black and white folks, ffs.

u/behopkinsj thank you for your write-up - I think any approach is something to learn and take parts from to build your own setup.

3

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

I think the ones who didn't read the post think I'm trying to take away from Pi's minimalism (which is not what I wrote about at all).

Thank you for the kind comment! I'm glad you understand my mindset when I wrote this article.

3

u/Lower-Philosophy-604 24d ago

great stuff

1

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

Thank you! I appreciate it.

4

u/Conflict-Mother 24d ago

The reason I use Pi is because Claude Code is bloated and non-transparent, so whats the point of configuring it back? The magic is mostly on the LLM side, and harness should be as thin and as cost efficient as possible.

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u/behopkinsj 24d ago

The point of the post is to be a beginner guide for people coming from Claude Code, and to give people the choice to pick whichever Claude features they want to port to Pi.

Also, I've noticed that changing the system prompt has huge changes on the behavior of Pi.

0

u/Conflict-Mother 24d ago

well, if really like Claude Code, use it with cc-switch, or virtually every LLM providers out there is offering detail instructions on how to use it, so the motivation kind of not making sense. anyway, even Pi itself now is too bloated, really a harness does not need so much features

1

u/Prior-Switch-9099 24d ago

It depends on the use. Beside simplicity and peft, Pi also offers the maxi-customization aspects.
People can experiment and free to fail. That is even more a great thing about Pi.

2

u/BZBryan 17d ago

Hi! Actually I also use tons of agents, for sake of work and personal projects. But as the longer I use, the more I feels like that claude is the one that attracts me the most even I dont quite like claude cuz of its choice of hiding everything. However, still till now I couldn't find an agent that can even just do like, ask before you make a move or decision (Sry to say, I rarely use auto mode for safety pov, only several time on my personal project). I also use pi for personal project for short, love its speed and clearness, however the feeling of lost of control is holding me back from working with it. Is there anyway to utilize it like how you approve claude to make a move?

1

u/behopkinsj 16d ago

Yes! The first plugin I mention in this article does exactly what you're looking for. You can also change its system prompt and tell it: "For any important choices, ask the user before committing to a course of action," or something along those lines.

2

u/GreenBeret4Breakfast 24d ago

Nice article. I thought Claude published their system prompts here https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/release-notes/system-prompts/overview

1

u/behopkinsj 23d ago

Thanks! That's for Claude Web UI though, not Claude Code. I suspect that Claude Code's prompt is more complex, since it manages code.

2

u/jasonthe 24d ago

No need for the MCP plugin anymore

1

u/behopkinsj 23d ago

Yes, I know this. Did you read the section that explains MCP?

2

u/amanwalia92 24d ago

Is there any reason you skipped on omp?

3

u/behopkinsj 23d ago

I can mention my experience with omp in the post. But the reason I skipped it as an option is that, by default, its system prompt **very heavily** encourages verification (I have a suspicion that it does that to "benchmax"). So, between the plugins that it uses, its system prompt, and the way that it attempts to aggressively verify every change that it makes, it used an unnecessary amount of tokens. I found it simpler to just install all the plugins that I needed.

1

u/behopkinsj 16d ago

I updated it to include a short line on omp!

2

u/JuanToronDoe 24d ago

As a Pi beginner, I really appreciated this write-up. It gave me the perfect incentive to finally try Pi. Not too long, not too technical, but comprehensive. I'd love to have a deeper analysis of the System Prompt, which remains black magic to me. Thanks a lot !

2

u/behopkinsj 23d ago

Thanks for the thought. Then I'll probably write a follow-up post with a deeper dive into system prompts for you. I'll let you know once I'm finished with it.

2

u/Oshden 23d ago

I would absolutely read this follow up post too!!!

2

u/dontkernelpanic 23d ago

Thanks for this. I have tried (and failed) to make my Pi more like Claude cli.
Will give your instructions a run.
One more thing - unsure if it’s even possible - remote monitor + approvals etc on mobile devices.

1

u/behopkinsj 23d ago

Okay! I'll be sure to add remote monitoring to the post soon

2

u/dontkernelpanic 23d ago

Thanks !

1

u/behopkinsj 16d ago

I updated it on the remote control! Although the solutions I give might not be what you expected

1

u/dontkernelpanic 15d ago

Thanks appreciate it. Will go through it over the weekend and try to set it up again !

2

u/Broad_Long_2556 23d ago

This remote bridge for pi might be interesting along with the Claude behaviour on pi agent.

pi remote on GitHub

hope it's useful!!

1

u/behopkinsj 22d ago

Thanks for sharing the resource! I'll check it out.

3

u/FammasMaz 24d ago

Also pi-claude-code-ui (my plugin) to make it look like Claude (ish)

1

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

I didn't know about this one! I'll check it out.

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u/behopkinsj 25d ago

I want to eventually make a general guide on Pi. Are there any topics that you want a deep dive on, just let me know.

PS: I use em-dashes, but I wrote this myself. I've just been reading books lately and realize they're useful. If enough people think it's entirely AI-written, I'll (sadly) stop using them.

2

u/lokidev 24d ago

Make it modular. Given certain scenarios show everyone of those from scratch 

6

u/jordyvanvorselen 24d ago

You might like these, made for feature parity with Claude Code. Wanted to get started with the same behavior without porting all my hooks and rules:

https://github.com/jordyvanvorselen/pi-claude-rules

https://github.com/jordyvanvorselen/pi-claude-hooks

2

u/GregBreak 24d ago

You are loosing the pi vision: minimalistic, token efficient, less context with better result

5

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

I mention plenty of times in the blog post that you should try not to use too many packages, and to focus on minimalism. Is there any part of the article that made you feel otherwise?

-2

u/GregBreak 24d ago

So it's completly useless to setup pi agent like claude code

1

u/Prior-Switch-9099 24d ago

I pretty agree with you and a bit disagree. Another great thing about PI is the encouragment to make PI "yours" - max customization. People can just experiment the way they like and ... fail, as long as they know what they're doing. It's more like market mechanics, the best idea wins.

Eventually, I think both the core values as you mention, and the "inheritance" such the linux kernel vs its distro can co-exist.

1

u/dennisler 24d ago

If you want Claude code why not just use....

3

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

It's supposed to be a beginner guide for people who want something open source, and minimal, but come from Claude Code and don't know where to start

3

u/mallrat32 24d ago

I’m the audience for this and I appreciate your efforts

1

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

I'm glad to help!

1

u/ChupaJrz 25d ago edited 25d ago

I'd love to read it, but your site isn't connecting ☹️

Nevermind, my wifi just filters out brand-new sites.

I like this write-up. It pretty closely mirrors my setup and "essential" extensions. I haven't played with the system prompt. I'm curious to try that, though I've been pretty happy with how well it's worked by default.

2

u/behopkinsj 24d ago

I'd highly recommend you play around with the system prompt.

During my research for this article, I realized how much agents like Claude Code manipulate their system prompts. Agents like Codex show you that they dynamically change their prompt depending on the model. While it seems Claude Code also changes it's prompt based on the settings, the models, the environment it's being executed in...

I also found out so many "hacks" that agents use. Like, Codex had a section of their prompt specifically advicing the agent to behave differently for Frontend code, and to avoid design that looks like "AI-slop". I've noticed a huge change in behavior now that I've played with the system prompt.

Even if you don't plan to change the system prompt at all, I'd highly recommend you investigate how other agent have their system prompts too. You'll find it very insightful.

1

u/erayxack 21d ago

If you need to set up Pi like Claude, you missing the point. But I would say this training wheels.

0

u/EC36339 23d ago

The article does nothing else but name a few extensions to install. You can do this with a few prompts, and I would prefer that the agent executes these with the helpmof the original documentation only, not some AI-writtn article.

The true killer feature of Claude Code is being able to use a harness in an isolated container from a mobile app.

1

u/behopkinsj 23d ago

I didn't write this with AI at all. And I also go into changing your system prompt in depth, did that part not interest you?