pi-picks1.3.1

pi-picks

A keyboard-driven model picker extension for the pi coding agent. It started as a fork of rilham97/pi-model-picker and was renamed once it diverged: favorites, one fuzzy query across tabs, token costs, and aligned metadata.

One screen, with tabs as filters over a single list: Favorites, All, then one tab per provider (A→Z). Typing fuzzy-searches within the current tab. Press Tab or Shift+Tab to switch tabs without losing your query; the All tab sits beside Favorites when you need to widen. The picker opens on Favorites when any favorite is available, so the usual flow is just open, type a character or two, Enter.

The first tab, Favorites, is the picker's own list, independent of pi's native scoped models, and the screen the picker opens on. Press Ctrl+F on any tab to toggle the selected model in Favorites (it stays in its provider tab too), and Ctrl+X to remove the favorites contained in the active tab: every favorite on Favorites or All, or only that provider's favorites on a provider tab. Favorites are marked with a gold ● outside the Favorites tab. They are stored as provider/id strings in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json under pi-picks.favorites (hand-editable), in the order added; a favorite whose model is temporarily unavailable is kept and reappears when the model does.

Preview

───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Select Model
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Favorites │ All │ Anthropic │ Antigravity │ Fireworks │ Xai
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  Search: > claude_

▶ Claude Sonnet ●  [Anthropic]         $3/$15  200k  thinking  vision

  (1/1) anthropic/claude-sonnet
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
  ↑↓ Enter select model · ←→ Tab select menu · Ctrl+F toggle favorite · Ctrl+X clear favorites · Esc cancel
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

• Active model highlighted in green with a green ●; if it is also a favorite, the ● is gold (on every tab, including Favorites)
• Context window shown as 200k, 1M, etc.
• Capability tags: thinking (extended reasoning), vision (image input)
• Search fuzzy-matches model name, id, and provider within the current tab
• Ranked search highlights — matching tabs and rows get a subtle neutral background, while the best-ranked result gets a distinct search-match background separate from the selected tab highlight
• One query everywhere — switching tabs keeps your query and, when it survives, your selection
• Duplicates side by side — on the All tab the same model from several providers sits adjacently, so cost and context differences are easy to compare
• Wraparound navigation — ↑ on the first item jumps to the last, and vice versa

Install

Via pi package manager (recommended)

pi install npm:pi-picks

Restart pi after installation. pi update --extensions pulls new releases.

From git

pi install git:github.com/JangMan-J/pi-picks

Migrating from pi-model-picker

Remove the old package first so /models is not registered twice (pi remove npm:pi-model-picker or pi remove git:github.com/JangMan-J/pi-model-picker, and delete ~/.pi/agent/extensions/model-picker if you installed it by hand). Settings under the old "pi-model-picker" key in settings.json are still read, and move to "pi-picks" the next time the picker saves a setting.

Usage

Trigger	Description
/models	Open the categorized picker
Ctrl+\	Keyboard shortcut (default, configurable)

Note: /model is a built-in pi command and cannot be overridden. Use /models (with an s) for this picker. The built-in /model (flat search) continues to work as normal.

Configuring the shortcut

By default the picker binds Ctrl+\. Override it in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json:

{
  "pi-picks": {
    "shortcut": "alt+m",
    "rememberLastTab": true
  }
}

shortcut accepts:

• a single key string, e.g. "alt+m"
• an array of key strings to bind multiple keys, e.g. ["alt+m", "ctrl+\"]
• false to disable the shortcut entirely (the /models command still works)

See pi's keybindings docs for the key identifier format (ctrl, shift, alt modifiers combined with letters, digits, or symbols).

Restart pi (or run /reload) after changing settings.json.

Last tab

The picker opens on Favorites when any favorite is available. Otherwise, with rememberLastTab (default true) it reopens the tab it last closed on; this state stays in memory while pi is running — restarting pi or using /reload clears it, and no state file is used. Search text is not saved.

With rememberLastTab: false and no available favorites, the picker starts on the current model's provider tab. If the saved tab is unavailable, the picker uses the current model's tab.

Searching beyond the current tab

Every tab uses the same fuzzy search; tabs only narrow which models it runs over. Move to the All tab when the current tab has no match (the empty state tells you when matches exist elsewhere). With a query active, matching tabs get green text on a subtle violet background, matching rows get a subtle neutral background, and the best-ranked row (first after fuzzy sorting) gets a distinct search-match background; the selected tab keeps its separate selected background. Tab skips provider tabs that have no matches; Favorites and All are always stops. Favorites and All stay visible when the provider tabs overflow the bar; the << / >> markers show what is hidden on each side.

Controls

Key	Action
↑ / ↓	Navigate models (wraps around)
Shift+↑ / Shift+↓	Move up / down 10 models, stopping at the first or last result
Tab / Shift+Tab	Switch tab (Favorites, All, then providers); with a query active, provider tabs with no matches are skipped
Ctrl+F	Toggle the selected model in Favorites, on any tab
Ctrl+X	Remove favorites contained in the active tab (every favorite on Favorites; only the relevant provider's favorites on a provider tab)
← / →	Switch tab when the search field is empty; otherwise move the text cursor
Type	Fuzzy-filter the current tab
Enter	Select highlighted model and save it as the default for new sessions
Esc / Ctrl+C	Cancel

Each successful selection saves the provider and model in Pi's global settings. It preserves other settings, including the default thinking level.

How it works

The picker calls modelRegistry.refresh() then modelRegistry.getAvailable() — the same data source as pi's built-in /model command. Only models with auth configured (API key or OAuth) are shown. Models are grouped by their provider field into provider tabs in A→Z order, sorted alphabetically within each tab with the active model first. The All tab instead sorts by model name, then provider, so duplicates offered by several providers sit together.

Uninstall

pi remove npm:pi-picks

Releasing

Every push to main runs npm run check. When package.json has a version that is not on npm yet, CI publishes it with npm trusted publishing (OIDC, with provenance), then tags v<version> and creates a GitHub release from that version's CHANGELOG.md section. To release: bump version, rename the ## Unreleased heading to ## <version> — <date>, and push.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.