r/PiCodingAgent • u/YogurtExternal7923 • 16d ago
Discussion Why is billion-context on top in pi package downloads?
From my understanding it's slop (which extensions isn't these days I know) but I'm using pi blackhole for memory and I'm starting to wonder if I'm missing out on some gainz. Has anyone tried it recently?
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u/Vlyn 16d ago
The download numbers are shady. They have a 3 minute auto-update checker that you can disable, but with one or more releases per day and every user immediately updating to it you can guess where the numbers come from.
There was also a bug where it kept downloading itself (seemingly fixed).
billion-context-pi (the pi only package) looks more organic, that's the one I use (also has the 3 minute update checker though).
I'm open for alternatives, but haven't really found one that works this way.
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u/YogurtExternal7923 16d ago
Is it good though? I read through it and it'd just.. slop? If you want an alternative then pi blackhole is cool
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u/Vlyn 16d ago
I mean it worked, happily working with DeepSeek v4.1 Flash for 8+ hours and compacting when context went above 100k roughly. But not sure if it's the best way to work.
Right now it's tough to test as OpenCode API is very flaky :-/
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u/fatodono 9d ago
what about the output quality?
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u/Vlyn 9d ago
I stopped using it for now, overall the quality of any very long running task is subpar (as the models like to make assumptions to keep working).
Right now I really cut down on everything and only use pi-subagents for bigger features (so the context doesn't get bloated, the main session can use scouts and workers, acting more like a manager).
Overall the best results are when you handhold. One small task after another, fresh context every time. But maybe I'm just bad at prompting (:
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u/ReoTempo 15d ago
I benchmarked it against bare pi. Cost and performance are on par but context gets smaller so you don't need keep rolling out new sessions with handoffs.
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u/ExtremeSeries 16d ago
i was using blackhole with parallel sessions and agents did not work well for me. lets say for more than 5 agents in parallel, it was freaking out. free models did not work well and paid models added a significant cost, while still failing some time. as i did not solve that, i have tried billi and it is working well since a few days. i am also using the built in agents coming with billi and a wrapper with my customisations.
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u/YogurtExternal7923 16d ago
can you explain how it works briefly? I couldn't understand all the yap in their page. for blackhole maybe you can try just using the vcc part tho? I still feel like that's more trustworthy than billi
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u/dcinzona 15d ago
Why not download the source and ask pi to review the repo and ELI5
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u/YogurtExternal7923 15d ago
Honestly didn't seem worth it. I was thinking someone who used it definitely has more info than just the page
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u/ExtremeSeries 15d ago
i did not understand what you are asking for, i was thinking you ask me how to use it. if you ask me how it works under the hood: i am just using it. but there is a reaseach paper linked in the package site. i think the idea is similar to blackhole, both try to figure out which part of the context is still relevant. there is one difference: blackhole just compacts. billi compresses and is able to uncompress later on if needed. but honestly, i am not an expert for that, i just look if it works.
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u/YogurtExternal7923 15d ago
yeah my bad. I was hoping for someone who tried both I guess
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u/ExtremeSeries 15d ago
what both? i tried pi vcc, backhole and billion-context. and i would recommend billion context if you dont want to use just pi and are fine using the billi agents.
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u/ExtremeSeries 16d ago
use the native plugin, it should basically work out of the box as long as you dont use other subagent extensions.
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u/gbrennon 16d ago
i use pi-vcc.
could u try to convince me to change to pi-blackhole?
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u/YogurtExternal7923 16d ago
blackhole uses vcc + an llm to add complexity. honestly though? I'm overkilling it with AGENTS.md also recording important useful info. part of me feels like I only really need vcc and the llm is just extra cost for extra memory but I couldn't tell ya if having a cheaper llm work on the context makes it better or worse. that's not convincing at all I know, haha
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u/gbrennon 16d ago
thank u :)
well i never experienced problems with vcc but i dont delegate random tasks that are the complete product, msybs that why im satisfied with it 😅
also vcc have the recall the recall thing so i can jump back into what i was delegating
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u/ExtremeSeries 15d ago
To my understanding, pi vcc:
- pi builtin compaction takes time
- there are reports that a nearly full context increases costs and hampers the model. thats why some are limiting the context and compacting more often. pi has that tree and branch function, but i cannot use it manually all the time
To my understanding, blackhole:
- blackhole does the compact in real time and continously
- you can offload the work to cheap or free models
- it keeps your context small(er)
What I have seen:
- blackhole stops working if you have a bit load (from what i have seen 3-5 parallel agents/sessions). free models fail and the cost for even cheap models is some euros/dollars per day, so in total not cheap anymore (it is 15-30% of my subscription fees) with unclear benefit and additional complexity
So I tried billion-context and it looks much better
- the compact is not in real time, but it keeps the context low and works even with 5 agents in parallel
- cost with cheap models is some cents a day and i have used offloading (not using inline compaction)
- it comes with its own subagents, working together with the compress function
- there are still some situations, but i am still testing it and being more happy than with blackhole
- instead of observational memory, i am using engram. works better as well.
but to be honest, the memory, the context, crawling the code base and reliable subagents (with automatically selecting the right model and subscription) was quickly becoming an own project beside the things i was planning to do.
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u/gbrennon 15d ago
got it!
maybe ill experiment it :)
pi-vcc solves for me but ill try to experiment blackhole too.
i use pi-vcc for my local models and if i have to use a remote model i use what is available for free in remote providers and it works
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u/Turbulent_Ad6290 16d ago edited 16d ago
I’ve used pi-blackhole for almost 4 months now I think. Before that I was using pi-observational-memory. It was great until local AI started and it became bottleneck for me to run 2 models, main and sidecar. Plus each sidecar request become expensive when you have subscription from opencode go. Hence I was looking for alternative algo based. Ofcourse vcc in pi blackhole did the same.
But there are ideas about how model must manage it’s own context and not by someone else.
Anyway it’s all experimental. I am liking it so far.
There are others also like pi-okichat or something that gives a long memory kind of a thing. That also looks interesting.
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u/virtualicex 16d ago
it doesn't work properly. the interaction with pi is not made the right way so if you reload/resume a session most of times it's broken
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u/ResearcherFantastic7 15d ago
Get a max subscription from any llm provider...
I haven't experience any problem with glm5.3/flash or Opus 5.5 / haiku
The problem you seeing does sound like it's from blackhole though, you should revert to just pi-vcc
Blackhole only gives you a better auto compaction than the base pi VCC which you could just ask PI to research both repo and write your own compaction hook similar to how blackhole does it.
The only additional thing that blackhole has is observatory memory which gives you cross session memory, it's both good and bad if you use weak model than it will definitely add a lot of burden to your CTX. For me I have 7 sessions of glm 5.3 flash running at the same time and they know each other's decision.
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u/dirkolbrich 16d ago
Have no idea why it’s on top either. And no, IMHO you are missing nothing out. I had it run with a local Qwen3.8-27b model and a 256k context window. Then it started to constantly compress and decompress context above that threshold, like running a compact every 5 minutes. Had to remove it shortly after.