pi-working-timer0.1.0

pi-working-timer

Appends live elapsed time to pi's working indicator, so the line that already tells you that pi is busy also tells you how long:

── ⠋ Working · 1m 04s ────────────────────────────────────────────

One second tick, no configuration, no runtime dependencies (the closest npm alternative ships a bundled effect runtime for the same twenty lines of timer logic — see docs/PRIOR-ART.md).

Install

pi install ./extensions/working-timer         # local
pi install npm:pi-working-timer               # npm
pi -e npm:pi-working-timer                    # this session only

pi's git sources clone a whole repository and install what its root package.json declares; the pi-collections root is never published and declares no pi manifest, so there is no git:.../pi-collections/... form. To install just this extension from the repo, clone it and pi install the subdirectory locally, or publish it to npm.

Or add it to the packages array in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json:

{
  "packages": ["./extensions/working-timer"]
}

What the clock measures

One run: from the moment you submit the prompt to the moment pi is fully idle — agent_settled, which pi emits only when no retry, compaction retry or queued continuation is pending. So multi-round tool work, automatic retries and steer/follow-up messages all count into a single uninterrupted clock, and it resets to 0s for your next prompt.

• Start = your keystroke (pi's input event), not the provider request: the few hundred milliseconds pi spends expanding the prompt, flushing queued messages and dispatching the request are time you were waiting too.
• A run started by another extension (no input event) is timed from agent_start instead.
• Interrupting ends the run: the label is cleared with the rest of the working line.
• Auto-retry and compaction swap pi's working row for their own (Retrying (1/3)…, Auto-compacting…). The clock keeps counting underneath, so when the working row comes back it shows the true total, backoff included.

Formatting: 12s under a minute, 1m 04s under an hour, 1h 02m after that.

Notes

• TUI only. RPC, JSON and print modes accept setWorkingMessage as a no-op, so the extension starts no timer there.
• One global working-message slot. pi exposes the working line as a single string (ctx.ui.setWorkingMessage) with no getter, so extensions that write it (this one, pi-working-status, pi-thinking-messaging, custom spinner packages, …) overwrite each other — last write wins, and this extension's tick would fight another one's. Run one at a time. At the end of a run this extension clears the message back to pi's default, but it cannot know whether someone else had set it first.
• No commands, no settings: to disable it, remove the extension.
• Coexists with pi-focus-aware-blinking-cursor and pi-scroll-speed — it does not touch the editor, the cursor or the border, only the working message, so load order is irrelevant.
• npm test -w pi-working-timer runs the headless suite, which drives the real event wiring against an injected clock and scheduler.