Pi Minimal Display

Compact, expandable tool activity for Pi. Consecutive tool calls become a summary such as:

bash ×3 read ×4 edit ×1
succeeded · ctrl+o to expand

A finished call that failed is named and counted in the summary, even while other calls are pending. Pending work keeps the pending card. Once every call has finished, a group with any failure uses a dark amber card on dark themes and a light amber card on light themes, for example completed · 1 failed: codemode. Later success does not erase that failure, and the count is calls, not tool names. Click a group or use Pi's configured tool-expansion shortcut to inspect its retained native details. Execution, tool definitions, model context, and saved conversation data are unchanged.

Summaries use the current Pi theme and native tool-card padding/backgrounds. Colored padding is clickable; the preceding blank line is not. Startup, new, resumed and forked sessions automatically begin minimal; /reload preserves Pi's current global expansion state. The existing tool shortcut (Ctrl+O by default) remains a two-state minimal/expanded toggle, including when rebound. This toggle is intentionally silent instead of inserting Tool output: expanded/collapsed into the transcript; the changed card detail is its feedback. Pi's native thinking-visibility shortcut (Ctrl+T by default) is likewise silent; the changed assistant presentation is its feedback. /minimal-display only reports status and is never required to activate the extension.

Status: 0.2.3. Questionnaire tool cards now compact by default while their separate answer UI stays interactive. Accepts Pi 1.2.0's model-request event handler; 0.2.x adds compact completed-failure cards with local failure counts and expandable model-request error folding. Tool-card compatibility remains tested on Pi 0.85.0, 0.85.1 and 0.99.1. The model-event compatibility change was checked on Pi 0.99.1, 1.1.0 and 1.2.0; the package's latest development host, and the host CI re-verifies, is 1.2.0. It accepts hosts whose patched presentation methods match a tested signature, so unrelated Pi releases do not require a plugin update; incompatible hosts stay native and display a diagnostic. A model-event seam that does not match falls back to native model errors without disabling tool cards. Compatibility results and limitations live in validation.

Install

The npm package is the recommended route; it versions and updates independently of the other extension in this repository:

pi install npm:@allenyolk/pi-minimal-display

Pin an immutable npm version when updates should not arrive automatically:

pi install npm:@allenyolk/pi-minimal-display@0.1.2

Or take it from the pi-extensions collection, which also enables @allenyolk/pi-delete unless you narrow it with a resource filter:

pi install git:github.com/AllenYolk/pi-extensions

For one run without changing settings:

pi -e npm:@allenyolk/pi-minimal-display

Pick one route. Installing from both npm and the collection loads this extension twice.

Try local source in an isolated profile

From the repository root, using your existing Pi installation:

PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR="$(mktemp -d)" pi -e ./packages/pi-minimal-display/src/index.ts

This profile is separate from your normal configuration and credentials. To test normal conversations you will need to configure that profile's provider separately. There is no installation hook or runtime dependency to install for this extension. Pi loads the TypeScript entry directly.

For a local package installation into a profile you have chosen:

pi install /absolute/path/to/pi-extensions/packages/pi-minimal-display

The repository, packed artifact and npm package all point to src/index.ts. No generated dist/ is required for Pi loading; npm publication is not required for GitHub installation.

Configuration

Create extensions/pi-minimal-display/config.json under Pi's actual agent directory (normally ~/.pi/agent). PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR is respected. No file means these defaults:

{
  "grouping": true,
  "default": "count_only",
  "modelErrors": "compact",
  "tools": {
    "read": "count_only",
    "grep": "count_only",
    "find": "count_only",
    "ls": "count_only",
    "bash": "lines",
    "edit": "lines",
    "write": "lines",
    "ask_user_question": "count_only",
    "plan_mode_question": "native",
    "plan_mode_complete": "native"
  },
  "bash": { "maxCommandChars": 120, "outputLines": 0 }
}

• native: preserve Pi's existing tool presentation. plan_mode_question and plan_mode_complete use this by default; add other interactive tools by their actual registered names when needed.
• count_only: compact count/status, with retained native details on expansion.
• ask_user_question defaults to count_only, including calls from @juicesharp/rpiv-ask-user-question. Its question/option arguments and answer text stay out of collapsed cards; expand to inspect Pi's native details. The questionnaire's separate interactive view remains available while answering. Existing explicit tools.ask_user_question: "native" overrides are respected; remove that override or set it to "count_only" to compact those cards.
• lines: joins the same group as count-only tools. When grouping is false, also shows a short command/path preview. Bash can show up to outputLines text lines.
• Tool overrides use exact names; defaults for other built-ins remain in effect. There is no MCP discovery or gateway-name guessing.
• Ordinary tools default to count-only, including readSeek_edit, readSeek_grep and future tool names. Counts identify actual registered names, not renderer titles. Explicit default and tools values remain authoritative; existing configurations explicitly setting default: "native" are not overwritten. To keep the pre-rc.3 unknown-tool behavior, set that value explicitly.
• maxCommandChars accepts integers 8–500, measured in Unicode code points; the preview also fits the terminal width. outputLines accepts integers 0–50. Neither changes actual arguments or results.
• Thinking visibility belongs only to Pi's native hideThinkingBlock setting in its regular settings file; this plugin never adds a second setting. Visible thinking remains native and splits adjacent tool groups. When Pi hides thinking, the compact presentation also omits Pi's Thinking... placeholder, and hidden-only blocks do not split adjacent managed tools. Visible assistant text still does.
• modelErrors is compact or native. compact is the default and does not follow default or grouping. native leaves model errors unchanged while tool cards still compact. An invalid value disables compact display for that runtime, as with any other invalid field.
• Older configs may still contain hideThinking; it is accepted only for migration and ignored. Remove it after moving the choice to Pi's native setting.

Model request errors

Consecutive pure model errors are projected at render time into a single-line block, separate from tool groups. A pure error has stopReason: "error", no response content, and its original error string:

▸ model request · 2 errors · ctrl+o to expand
▸ model request · resumed · 2 errors · ctrl+o to expand
▸ model request · stopped · 3 errors · ctrl+o to expand
Error: 503 model unavailable

Model request blocks default to closed, keeping the transcript compact. When followed by a successful assistant reply, the block marks resumed. If execution stopped without recovery, stopped appears with the title highlighted in red, and the closed block shows the last error on one line. Clicking the header or pressing Ctrl+O expands every original error in order, without rewriting it. Historical and reloaded sessions use the same projection and do not keep Pi's unsaved Retry failed after N attempts notice. Cancelling or a partial response stays native.

Changes take effect after /reload or restart. /minimal-display shows status and the configuration path. Unknown keys, invalid types, malformed JSON, or unreadable configuration disable compact display for that runtime and report the file path.

Groups end at intervening visible assistant text/thinking, native tools, other transcript output, user messages or skill invocations. Natively hidden thinking and empty tool-call-only assistant placeholders do not. Five calls, commentary, then three calls stay in that order as two groups, including when expanded. The session branch also identifies image-only user turns that have no visible user card. Expanded groups use Pi's native renderers, controls and images without adding a Retained data appendix. Native renderers may omit some successful text or metadata; raw arguments/results/details remain unchanged in Pi's session data. The plugin cannot recover output Pi already discarded.

Runtime patches and recovery

This extension temporarily patches Pi's in-memory container rendering, mouse routing, Assistant presentation, and native expansion/status routing for tool and thinking toggles. Pi's native component state remains the sole thinking-visibility authority; the plugin only removes its hidden placeholder from the compact projection. It never edits installed Pi files and never registers replacement tools. All private host assumptions are kept in presentation.ts.

Installation checks required exports/descriptors and fingerprints of the host methods it patches, not the Pi version string. Shutdown and reload dispose owned patches; a runtime presentation failure disables the adapter and reports the fallback. Do not run it alongside pi-tool-display, pi-tool-compact-display, or pi-compact-display. Known tool-owner conflicts and prior modifications to the patched methods are rejected. Arbitrary third-party prototype patch combinations are not supported.

To recover, restart Pi without this extension. Remove the same source used for installation—for example pi remove npm:@allenyolk/pi-minimal-display, or the collection source if that is how it was installed—then restart. The configuration file can be kept. Running pi --no-extensions provides a diagnostic session with all auto-discovered extensions disabled.

Development

Prerequisites: Node >=22.19.0, npm, and uv for the standard-library Python PTY test harness on macOS/Linux.

From the repository root, which installs the workspace and this package's pinned Pi host:

npm ci --ignore-scripts
uv python install 3.12
npm --workspace @allenyolk/pi-minimal-display run check
npm --workspace @allenyolk/pi-minimal-display run benchmark
npm --workspace @allenyolk/pi-minimal-display exec -- npm pack --ignore-scripts

npm run check includes type checking, configuration/component regressions, real InteractiveMode replay/keyboard/mouse/image checks, a bundled Pi CLI probe with ten reloads, and an actual packed-artifact load. Tests use disposable directories under ignored work/ and never alter the daily Pi profile.

See CONTRIBUTING.md for issue, review, and release gates. The authoritative contract is pi-minimal-display#1, archived from the retired repository.

License and provenance

MIT, copyright AllenYolk. This is an original implementation, informed by the behavior of pi-compact-display and Pi's documented extension interfaces. No compact-display source was copied. Pi and its dependencies retain their respective licenses.