pi-recent-user0.2.0

pi-recent-user

A pi extension that keeps a persistent widget showing your recent prompts, so you can pick up context fast when returning to a long session.

Problem

A pi session accumulates many turns over time. Leave for a while, come back, and the screen is full of the latest LLM thinking and answer — you scroll forever to find "what did I ask last?". This extension puts a persistent widget above the editor showing your last N prompts. One glance and you're back in context.

What it looks like

Widget (above the editor):

📝 Recently you asked:
· help me review the token-refresh logic in the login module
· what are typical Redis use cases
▶ what to consider when designing a flash-sale system

Latest entry is marked with ▶, earlier ones with ·.

Config page (opens in your browser via /recent): a dark-themed card with a show/hide toggle, a count slider (1–10), a max-line slider (10–200), and a live preview rendered with your session's actual recent prompts. Saving applies instantly — no restart needed.

Install

# local path (dev/personal)
pi install /path/to/pi-recent-user

# GitHub
pi install git:github.com/ichewm/pi-recent-user@v0.2.0
# or unpinned
pi install https://github.com/ichewm/pi-recent-user

# npm
pi install npm:pi-recent-user

Once installed, every pi start auto-loads it (no -e needed). Uninstall: pi remove <source>.

Usage

Same subcommand style as /vrefine:

Command	Effect
/recent	show status: widget state, count/maxLine, config path, config-page URL if running
/recent config	open the web config page in your browser (main entry)
/recent config stop	manually close the config page server
/recent on / /recent off	quick show / hide without opening the page
/recent 5	quick set: show last 5 prompts (1–10)

Running /recent config again while the page is running just shows the existing URL. The page auto-closes after 10 minutes of inactivity; every save also notifys in the pi terminal (config saved (…). Hot-applied.).

On the config page you can adjust everything — show/hide, count, max line width — with a live preview of the widget, then Save. Changes are written to the config file and applied to the widget immediately.

If the browser fails to open, pi shows the URL (e.g. http://127.0.0.1:53231/?t=<token>) so you can open it manually.

Config

Stored in the extension's own file: ~/.pi/agent/pi-recent-user.json — not in pi's settings.json (follows the pi ecosystem convention, so no config leftover on uninstall).

Field	Type	Default	Description
count	number	3	how many recent prompts to show (1–10, auto-clamped)
maxLine	number	70	max display width per line, in terminal columns (10–200)
show	boolean	true	whether the widget is shown

You normally don't edit this file by hand — use the web page. If you do edit it, restart pi (or re-save from the page) to take effect.

How it works

• Widget: session_start (return/new session) + turn_end (refresh after each turn) → reads ctx.sessionManager.getBranch(), takes the last N role === "user" messages → ctx.ui.setWidget(), a persistent widget above the editor
• Config page: /recent config starts a local HTTP server on 127.0.0.1 (random port) guarded by a per-session random token in the URL, then opens it in your browser. /recent config stop closes it manually; it also auto-shuts-down after 10 minutes of inactivity or when the session shuts down. The page is served inline (no external assets); edits POST back as JSON, are clamped to valid ranges, persisted atomically (a disk-write failure surfaces as an error instead of a fake success), and the widget refreshes instantly.
• Zero side effects on your session: read-only w.r.t. messages — doesn't touch context, doesn't alter the message stream, makes no LLM calls

Notes

1. Truncation by display width (CJK characters counted as 2 columns) via truncateToWidth, so wide-glyph text doesn't overflow.
2. Multi-line/long input: each entry is collapsed to a single line (all whitespace runs become one space).
3. Widget position: above the editor by default. For below: pass { placement: "belowEditor" } to setWidget.
4. After pi remove: the config file ~/.pi/agent/pi-recent-user.json remains but is harmless (not read when the extension is unloaded). Delete it manually to fully clean up.
5. Empty session: the widget is hidden when there's no user-message history yet; the config page preview shows a hint instead.
6. Security & privacy: the config server binds to 127.0.0.1 only, uses a random port and a random per-run session token, rejects foreign Host headers (DNS-rebinding guard), sends Cache-Control: no-store and a restrictive Content-Security-Policy, and caps request body size. Recent prompts shown on the page live in memory only — nothing is logged, persisted, or sent anywhere; the config file stores just three harmless fields (count / maxLine / show).

Customize

Three files under src/:

• index.ts — extension entry: events, widget updates, /recent command, browser opening
• config.ts — config type, defaults, clamping, atomic load/save
• config-server.ts — local HTTP server + inline HTML page + widget-line builder (single source of truth for rendering)

Common tweaks:

• Defaults: DEFAULTS in config.ts
• Widget title: the "📝 Recently you asked:" string in buildWidgetLines (config-server.ts)
• Idle timeout of the config server: IDLE_TIMEOUT_MS in config-server.ts (10 min, same as /vrefine config)
• Position below editor: add { placement: "belowEditor" } to setWidget in index.ts

After edits: /reload or restart pi.

Development

npm run check                # tsc --noEmit
node --experimental-strip-types --no-warnings test-server.ts    # config server: auth, clamping, width budget, edge cases (no pi needed)
node --experimental-strip-types --no-warnings test-command.ts   # /recent subcommand dispatch with mocked pi/ctx

Tests never touch your real config: test-command.ts sets PI_RECENT_USER_CONFIG to a temp path before importing the extension (dynamic import), so all writes are redirected. You can also set that env var yourself to run pi with an isolated config file.

Dependencies

• Runtime: @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent and @earendil-works/pi-tui (bundled with pi, listed as peerDependencies, not bundled here)
• No build step — pi runs .ts directly via jiti

License

MIT