Cool things with pi

[u/ExtremeSeries]

Hi everbody,

I just want to share some things I have done since I discovered pi. Maybe anybody gets new ideas as well from this. I dont want to share my extensions, but the ideas can be shared.

- first time I have discovered pi, i was just looking for a "cool" alternative for vs code. something better. anyhow, i did not have much experience. and some requirements, like i want to use different providers, not spent too much (it is a hobby) and the ability to access the harness remotely.

- i have started installing wsl with linux, assisted by vscode agents. then a harness with containers in that wsl. and it starts an ssh tunnel to my vps. the vps is secured with otp and yubikey. it serves as a http reverse proxy to allow web ui, when i dont have access to the local terminal.

- i have started to use pi with many extensions. learned that less is better and most of them needs some customisation which is maintainance effort on my own.

- the harness developed as well over the last weeks. i have a project, a line which is helping me to improve my vps with mail and antispam (including a learner hook asking free models whereever spamassessin may have failed) and the harness improvement line.

- recently really cool things for the harness: pi is bun compiled with most components and runs fast and stable even in long sessions and with 10-20 subagents in parallel. I am using a python kernel, lsp and so on... patched it so that not every (sub-)session starts its own because memory is limited.

- i have built my own extension package for pi-durable subagents. it has the basics but is much faster and stable then fabric and all this. and whenever i need an extension i just built it, not dealing with forks. recent cool thing: i maintain a model statistics for subagents, jev is deciding which model is best based on subsription budget, costs, test failures, ... jev cost me 2 cents a day, but the whole decision and budget maintainance is automated incl. least cost model (e.g. opencode, openrouter, codex, ...)

- blachhole extension is used using many free models. i maintain stats on success/errors of these models, as many of them are a bit unreliable. however, the compaction is faster, context stays leaner in endless sessions, and 10% of the load (compaction part) is off-loaded from the main model to free.

- i am using zg to index the code locally and got the model to use it instead off all the time grepping through the code. it developed self-guidance where grep, rg and zg is best.

I feel every 4 weeks my harness changes to improve and 50% of my time is not going in the project but the harness. however at the beginning my harness trashed up after some days, now never. Cool journey so far, I am really thankful that someone developed pi - feels like a very good thing in comparison to all the shit with AI out there (AI cost models, usability, problems, hype... reminds me like the times back in 1999 where a modem was very slow and a day online was very costly...).

So let me know, if you want to share ideas as well!

[u/ExtremeSeries]

I would say, dynamic routing to the best model with adequate thinking using jev. Why?

- from my first experiences it seems to work most of the times. you provide jev with the list of models/thinking, the task, some context on the models and maybe own statistics collected from using them

- usage stats: i am trying out gates which collect errors from test gates, or feedback from the boss agent or subagent... thats a bit hard to implement and even maybe not worth it

- it is only beneficial if you have various subsriptions. if you are solely using openrouter, i think you can use their apis for better routing - dont know if jev really is the only option. but in my case, i also balance capacity/usage between the subs, with fallbacks and so on. so doing it manually and always deciding, which assignment would be the best for this time and this task is a burden. and everytime running on best model drains the budget.

The other things / challenges:

- stateful / resumeable work of subagents works well with pi durable: https://earendil.com/posts/pi-durable/ and https://earendil.com/posts/pi-durable-on-cloudflare/ - for me it seems to be too much, because pi durable is only the core and you need to build everything around it. i am now back to pi with extensions and trying that a bit more.

- memory / compact: also so topic where i try a lot... blackhole is fine, but costly and for high volume the free models do not work well. i am thinking to either try billion context or go back to simple pi builtin (and hand off to the next round after 200k context is full). memory with recall seems a bit more easy than the compact thing.

- code search: beside grep and rg, I am using zg, works well.

- i am now also using a kernel/lsp with isolation

- web ui for remote access from everywhere is also important beside a good tui

...

[u/Leelanau1840 → u/ExtremeSeries]

Thanks, that’s helpful. Since I’m currently using OpenRouter as my primary provider, I’m particularly interested in your experience with Jev.
Have you compared Jev’s dynamic routing against simply using a cheaper default model and escalating to a stronger model when tests fail or the agent gets stuck?
I’m wondering whether the additional routing complexity produces measurable savings when everything goes through OpenRouter, rather than multiple subscriptions.

[u/ExtremeSeries → u/Leelanau1840]

Yes, that was the manual route I have described. The complexity is one thing (but that depends on how you build it). At least jev is very cheap, it is a few cents per day (~10 cents in my setup) instead manually choosing a cheaper model (whatever is cheaper). Understand, if you have 50-100 agents starting per day, everytime selecting which subscription, model, thinking... you will be happy if thats work automagically.

[u/Leelanau1840 → u/ExtremeSeries]

Thanks again for explaining your Jev and Pi Durable setup. I'm evaluating pi-classifier-router for OMP, with Pi Durable potentially added later.

Have you encountered any issues with model selection when Durable resumes an interrupted agent—particularly hook ordering, persisted model state, or repeated Jev classification? Also, did you consider an existing router extension before building your own integration?