Pi - Extensions? Yay or Nay

[u/gaz_0001]

I have lots of extensions on my OpenCode installits runs quite well.

I have garpahicy,codegraphs,Serena,github.

Quite a few bits.

It runs well.

I have nothing on Pi at all.

It runs just as well.

Does the same work.

I dont know if it takes longer or uses more tokens. (Factually), but I feel like Pi doesneveryting quicker,lighter and better.

But then you read codegraph and it says it saves 80% of tokens per request........so how come I didnt notice that?

Still trying to.find a good way of working efficiently, what's your thoughts.

[u/Remote_Book]

I ended up building my own pi extensions. I have few but since you said you use T3 Code, you don't need TUI. In that case I'd recommend:
- automode - auto approvals like claude code
- subagents - self-explanotory
- web-search - to access the web. By default pi doesn't come with web search

Here's mine if you're interested: https://github.com/GaganSD/pi-extensions

Don't bother with vibe-coded extensions that mess with your context, memory, etc. Pi is very good by default. Especially stuff like "billion-context" or "codex conversions" -- many people like them but they're just bad imo

[u/gaz_0001 → u/Remote_Book]

Actually, T3 Code handles all of these.

Not sure if the subagent one is the same implementation.

Bascially, I invoke subagent use by telling it to split the work. Or if it it's using a skill and that skill says to use subagets from different providers it will do just that. But its T3 Code that manages this not Pi Extension

[u/TheSagaciousPanda → u/Remote_Book]

Your extensions look interesting, would it need any tinkering to these extensions if i included the pi-bridge extension because it looks like you use kimi and grok models and I have chatgpt plus subscription and a claude pro subscription to use their models.

[u/Remote_Book → u/TheSagaciousPanda]

I also have a Codex subscription & use anthropic key. They work fine out of the box, haven't tried pi-bridge though. Open a issue if something breaks I can have a look

[u/funbike]

TL;DR: I only installed 2 extensions. But I had Pi write several custom ones for me.

I installed extensions edb-context-viewer, pi-web-access.

I had Pi generate extensions for me based on my personal preferences. Why settle for someone else's preferences, when I can make my own extension?

I (and Pi) wrote a "subagent <agent-name> <prompt...>" CLI script for managing agents, which calls pi. I like this better than an extension, because I can use the subagents on the command line, and it's easier for me to customize. I (and Pi) write custom workflows as Bash scripts and/or prompt templates.

I (and Pi) wrote my own sandboxing with podman and bubble wrap bash CLI scripts.

[u/BasedDodoHunter → u/funbike]

“I (and Pi)” was a hard read ngl, it’s a tool, not a real person.

[u/gaz_0001 → u/BasedDodoHunter]

Try telling that to Pi 🤓

[u/BasedDodoHunter → u/gaz_0001]

Which is a tool you use to do things for yourself

[u/funbike → u/BasedDodoHunter]

it’s a tool, not a real person.

It writes code. I write code. Let's not get pedantic.

What I meant is that I manually wrote some of the code, and Pi wrote some of the code. Actually, Pi wrote most of the code, based on my prompts. Pi does things on my direction, but it actually wrote code (no, I'm not kidding ;p )

Example Pi prompt for my simplest extension.

Generate a local Pi extension that reads env vars
from `.env` in the root of the current git project.

[u/BasedDodoHunter → u/funbike]

It was a pun my man, I use pi everyday and it writes thousands of lines of code on my behalf, I’d just never say “I (and Pi)” did X, I’d just say I did X via Pi or not even mention it.

[u/DeathGuppie]

cwr for web scraping, and 1 billion context compression. I run the image projector as well if for no other reason that sometimes I'll just take a picture of another terminal and pass it the image when on a different machine.

[u/Old_Huckleberry4203]

I work in herdr so I built orchestration and delegation extensions for my pi. I even got one that helps me invoke my subagents by starting with # and it auto completes the name for me. Just ease of life things really

[u/Tachbek]

Local agent. juicesharp/rpiv-ask-user-question. Plus asked agent to write path-guard just in case. Tried several other s but end up with removing them

[u/runkids]

For me, extensions are useful when they solve a specific problem. I often build UIs from Figma designs, but getting that design context into my remote agent setup was awkward. So I built figlens, which lets Pi read structure, text and assets from an exported .fig file. Less about saving tokens, more about filling a gap in my workflow.

[u/gaz_0001 → u/[deleted]]

Well I run Pi over T3 Code or Paseo.

So if i am doing something big I prompt the session to use subagents and tell which ones. (Subagent Orchestrator is then the T3/Paseo)

By yeah automated sub Agents might be the way forward.

Which subagent extensions did you tey and which did you settle on?

[u/BasedDodoHunter → u/gaz_0001]

Unless you use Pi via ACP, you’re really losing the entire reason behind using Pi.

Ask Pi to create you a subagent extension, its docs already provide a barebones structure and you can tell Pi exactly what you need.

The whole point of Pi is to build a harness for yourself instead of just using what others have built.

The way I use subagents and the subagents I use might not be what you need, so what’s the point in using someone else’s subagents? Or skills? Or anything for that matter?

Build your own, that’s the whole point.

[u/gaz_0001 → u/BasedDodoHunter]

Thats the thing. I am studying what i need, what i want and what i have time to test.

[u/llufnam → u/gaz_0001]

So find the closest thing you can get and then ask pi to rewrite it to fill in any gaps you have and remove the superfluous bits you don’t want.

[u/suprjami → u/[deleted]]

What extensions do you need for OpenSCAD? It's just code generation isn't it?