Pi Coding Agent

Pi provides a terminal agent loop, file and shell tools, model selection, session history, context loading, compaction, and several programmatic surfaces. The official site lists interactive, print/JSON, RPC, and SDK modes, so Pi can be used directly or embedded inside another application.

• Install surface: the official package is @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent, and the CLI command is pi.
• Provider surface: Pi supports subscription OAuth routes, API-key providers, cloud gateways, custom providers, and local models through llama.cpp.
• Context surface: AGENTS.md, skills, prompt templates, project settings, and tree-structured session history shape the working context.

Pi keeps its coding harness extensible through packages and TypeScript extensions. Its current core includes MCP server tools and resources over stdio or streamable HTTP, with connection and OAuth management. Older descriptions that put MCP entirely outside the core are outdated. Workflow customization and operating-system isolation remain separate decisions.

• Extensions can register tools and commands, intercept lifecycle events, change compaction, and add custom terminal UI.
• Skills and prompt templates add reusable guidance without permanently expanding the core prompt.
• Pi packages can bundle extensions, skills, prompts, and themes for npm or Git distribution.

Historical release context: this section describes the earlier release. The current release checkpoint appears on this page. The September 22 v0.87.1 release adds support for GPT-6 Sol, GPT-6 Luna and Claude Opus 5.5, changes the SpaceXAI default to Grok 4.7, and repairs compaction, flag handling and image-only messages. Those are concrete compatibility and reliability changes; they do not establish that one newly supported model is best for every Pi workflow.

Pi project trust controls whether project-local settings and executable resources load, but it is not a sandbox. Built-in tools and extensions run with the permissions of the Pi process. For untrusted repositories, unattended work, or sensitive credentials, the official security guide recommends a container, VM, micro-VM, remote sandbox, or another operating-system isolation boundary.

Pi and Claude Code can run similar coding tasks, but they make different product choices. Pi exposes a small provider-flexible harness that users extend themselves. Claude Code provides an Anthropic-centered workflow with more planning, permission, subagent, hook, and team controls built in. Community comparisons are useful for discovering this decision, not for declaring a universal winner.

The October 1 v1.0.0 release makes the TUI fullscreen by default and adds image-model calls in codemode and MCP OAuth hardening. The October 5 v1.0.4 patch adds wildcard tool-selection patterns and --no-mcp for one run, preserves image blocks returned by codemode reads, and fixes OAuth client registration and MCP shutdown. These are documented release changes, not proof every provider or server works in every environment.

The October 12 stable release adds per-key OpenRouter model discovery, a settings JSON schema, remote clipboard support and codemode improvements. Extension-triggered runs emit before_agent_start, and MCP list JSON behavior changes. Check extensions and machine-readable CLI consumers before upgrading; the release does not create an operating-system sandbox.

Pi 1.3.0 adds sessionShareDestination to choose auto, GitHub gist or Radius for /share. Those destinations upload session material; inspect it before sharing. The release preserves prompt caching when changing GPT-6 thinking levels, switches Kimi Code to Chat Completions with a /v1 base URL, drops reasoning from a previous model when switching, and restores tools on resume. These are Pi integration changes, not new provider-wide model contracts.

• Current official source

  Read the exact release or provider scope.