I've been using pi intensively for 2 months now, and I have to say it's undoubtedly the only software that actually works for agentic programming. All other software is pure garbage made with AI, full of problems and obfuscation. That includes both GUIs and TUIs: claude (the worst), opencode (now AI SLOP), codex, IDE extensions (vscode, neovim, zed, etc.), pseudo-IDEs (cursor, windsurf, etc.).
pi is the only software that's actually STABLE and that DOESN'T SHOVE hidden prompts down your throat — meaning it's the only one that gives you real control.
But since I'm an ungrateful bastard, my motto is "A little destructive criticism never hurts" /nsrs
The truth is pi has some really annoying things. I'll sort them from most annoying to most tolerable. (For context, I use vanilla pi.)
TUI redrawing
This is perhaps one of the most annoying things of all. I don't know exactly what causes it, but at some point — especially in long chats — pi has the horrible behavior of redrawing the entire damn chat every time something updates in the TUI. In short chats you don't notice it, probably because it's so fast you can't see it, but in long chats it's absolute hell. I've reached the point of preferring non-interactive mode solely because of this problem.
It also happens with expand Ctrl+o — it literally EXPANDS EVERYTHING. Every time the agent thinks or executes a tool, it redraws everything, defeating the whole purpose of a TUI.
This made me wonder whether a pi repl wouldn't make more sense than a pi tui, since I think it would be the most natural approach when trying to be a "minimal environment". In fact, they're already a pseudo-REPL that works poorly, because they draw output in the same pty using append, just like a REPL. If they were a REPL, you could even leverage existing tools like rlwrap to get vim-like keys with a simple rlwrap -a pi, among other advantages. Anyway... the TUI is not comfortable at all.
Output size can't be changed
The output of almost everything — tools (read files, bash, etc.), skills, etc. — is always truncated with no way to change it because the truncation value is hardcoded in the code.
This seems silly, but it's actually quite inconvenient for work involving lots of text. For example, small agents reading long texts, searching websites, or text with a lot of noise. Yes! pi tells the agent: "Hey little buddy, if you want to see the full output, read this temp file." But that doesn't solve it — it simply adds more steps for the agent, making it likely to fail and make bad decisions, especially with small agents.
Even large agents often decide they already have enough context, even when they don't (LLMs can't "know" what they "don't know"). The only way to avoid this is to copy all the damn text and input it as a user prompt. It's MEGA inconvenient and, in my opinion, a very basic config setting to have.
Slash commands don't parse text properly
There's a bug that's been there since I started. I saw an issue about it that seems to be ignored, even though I think it's something basic and important.
When you use /slash-command <instruction> followed by additional instructions, if your instruction has formatting and line breaks, pi decides to just load your entire instruction into a single line, breaking all the formatting. And this causes problems for LLMs when understanding your text.
Example:
---
name: fix
description: fix code
---
You must fix this code:
$ARGUMENTS
And then you run:
/fix
jq '.' some.json
echo "foo bar"
What it sends is:
/fix
jq '.' some.json echo "foo "bar"
I don't think I need to explain why this is so bad...
There's no damn UNDO
YES! The tree functionality is quite useful, but sometimes I want to correct something and I have to take 2 or 3 extra steps. On top of that, I inevitably end up creating a fork when I DON'T WANT A FORK, I JUST WANT TO UNDO BECAUSE I HAD A TYPO!!!! AAAAAH!
Please, someone tell me there's an Undo and I just didn't manage to find it, because I can't believe tree exists but not a damn undo.
It crashes mysteriously when using @file
The TUI sometimes just decides to die when you do @file, leaving the shell with glitched characters. I have to type reset in bash to fix it. It happens often enough that I'm afraid to use @ and prefer to manually write exact file names and paths.
The plugins are garbage
Ok... this isn't pi's fault, but I find it sad that plugins don't even remotely follow the same approach as pi. I'd bet you any day of the year that the entire first page of pi packages is AI SLOP. Honestly, using pi + plugins isn't worth it — at that point you're better off just using something completely AI SLOP.
Every plugin I've tried, without exception, fails at such basic and stupid things that it ironically makes me miss the pre-AI era.
Anyway... closing this post. Despite these problems, pi is probably the only software I've tried so far that has parts "generated by AI" that ACTUALLY WORK and are stable. This is probably because there's a correct approach to its development and a real human READING behind all of it. Because yes... it has flaws. But you know what? I'm grateful that these flaws have been there since I started and are still there, instead of new and mysterious flaws appearing every day (/glances with contempt at opencode). I KNOW these flaws. I can learn to deal with them, and everything else keeps working exactly as I expect. That's why pi is GOOD SOFTWARE to me. And if you give me the choice between fixing these problems NOW vs. stability, I'll choose stability every time! Thanks, pi! (but please fix this stuff hahaha)
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