Tool Output Browser

Most of this extension was written with the pi agent CLI.

Opens one tool result at a time without changing pi's compact transcript view.

Back to the extension workspace

Usage

Open the browser in TUI mode:

• Run /tool-output to browse tool outputs on the active session branch.
• Run /tool-output [initial filter] to open with an optional filter.

In the picker (built on the shared Pi Picker):

• Type to search tool name, arguments, output, and result details; results are ranked (word starts and consecutive letters first, multi-word in any order) and matches are highlighted.
• Press Up / Down and Page Up / Page Down to navigate. The preview pane shows the selected output, opened at the first match; scroll it with Shift+Up / Shift+Down.
• Press Ctrl+F then a number to filter by tool (the six most frequent) or errors only.
• Press Tab to mark results, and Ctrl+Y to copy the selected or marked outputs.
• Press Enter (or double-click) to open the selected result; with marked results, n / p step through just those.
• Press Escape to clear marks, then close; Ctrl+C closes immediately.

In an opened result:

• Press Up / Down or j / k to scroll one visual line.
• Press Page Up / Page Down or Space to scroll one page.
• Press Home / End or g / G to jump to the start or end.
• Press Tab / Right to switch among output, arguments, details, structured content, and nested calls.
• Press n / p to open the next or previous matching tool result.
• Use the configured tui.select.cancel binding (default Escape) or Left to return to the picker. Scrolling respects tui.select.up, down, pageUp, and pageDown; the footer shows the configured keys.
• Press Ctrl+C to close the browser.

Pi's normal Ctrl+O remains unchanged and still expands or collapses every tool row in the transcript.

Appearance

Panels use horizontal separators rather than enclosing boxes. The theme's selection color marks selected items, and an accent underline marks the active tab. Metadata is dimmed, errors use the error color, and narrow windows show shorter help text. The overlay reads the current theme when rendering, so switching themes does not leave cached colors behind.

Rendering and navigation are tested against pi 1.3.0, including tiny widths and 40/80/120/160 columns, long output, CJK, combining characters, and emoji. The interface retains all navigation keys listed above even when short help text omits them.

Scope and limitations

The browser reads tool-result messages from the current active branch. Newest results appear first; results that exist only on alternate branches are not shown.

The output view shows the complete text stored in the tool-result message, rather than the compact transcript preview. The arguments and details views show the corresponding stored metadata. Structured and nested views expose structuredContent and the full stored nestedCalls record, including completeness/truncation metadata; these fields are searchable too. Repeated payload strings are indexed once (including bash output duplicated in structured/nested results), while the detail tabs retain the complete original values. The browser shows image blocks as MIME-type markers, not terminal images.

The browser uses an overlay because pi's public extension API exposes only the global tool-expansion state. It cannot focus or expand individual built-in transcript rows.

Tool-level truncation still applies. If a tool stored only a truncated result, such as a large read result, the browser cannot recover omitted content. For truncated bash output, use the full-output path recorded by pi when that temporary file is still available.

Privacy

The extension reads only the active in-memory session branch and does not write or upload tool output. It displays output and metadata locally in the TUI.

Requirements

Interactive TUI mode is required; overlays are unavailable in RPC, JSON, and print modes.

Installation

Install the standalone package:

pi install npm:@stagefright5/pi-tool-output-browser

For source development and tests, see the source README and workspace development guide.