Pi provider (mcowger)

pi-plugin-mcowger is a Paseo provider for the pi coding agent. It targets Paseo v0.8.0 and embeds pi through @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent instead of running the pi CLI in RPC mode.

Status

The plugin is ready for use with Paseo v0.8.0. Paseo's provider API is stable for this release.

Preview

Screenshot

What it does

• Loads pi models, auth, settings, extensions, skills, and prompt templates from ~/.pi/agent.
• Exposes pi models with per-model thinking levels in Paseo's composer.
• Stores Pi presets in Paseo host settings and exposes them as composer modes. Manage presets in Settings → Plugins → Pi Presets. Selecting one applies its model, thinking level, tool patterns, and appended system prompt.
• Provides a branch-aware todo tool when no loaded Pi extension already contributes one, and emits its results (along with @juicesharp/rpiv-todo results) as native Paseo todo items.
• Maps foreground pi subagent calls to native Paseo subagent tool rows.
• Bridges pi extension dialogs to Paseo permission questions.
• Bridges Paseo-provided MCP servers to pi custom tools in-process.
• Publishes Pi extension slash commands alongside built-in commands and prompt templates.
• Exposes native composer selectors for compact and retry.
• Emits startup diagnostics for failed resources, MCP connections, model fallbacks, and unsupported session configuration instead of hiding those problems in daemon logs.
• Persists sessions with pi's SessionManager and supports replay from the active branch, steering, interruption, compaction, and usage reporting.

Runtime settings and diagnostics

Active Pi agents expose native composer selectors for Compact and Retry. Each selector shows its current state and opens a small popup with explicit on/off choices.

The embedded SDK cannot safely apply per-session environment overrides or provider-native options without mutating shared process state. It also does not expose MCP approval enforcement. The plugin leaves those values unchanged and emits a visible startup diagnostic when env, providerOptions, or toolPolicy is supplied.

Startup diagnostics also cover failed Pi extensions, skills, prompts, themes, MCP tool discovery, unavailable requested models, and model fallbacks.

Preset behavior

Preset modes apply their model and thinking level when selected on an existing live session. In a new-agent draft composer, Paseo v0.8.0 provider modes cannot declare model or thinking defaults, so selecting a preset updates the mode pill but leaves the draft's model and thinking pills unchanged. The preset is still applied when the session is created. Updating the draft pills immediately will require a future Paseo host/API change. When no presets are configured, the provider publishes no modes and Paseo hides the mode pill.

Installation

Install from a checkout of this repository:

cd /absolute/path/to/pi-plugin-mcowger
npm install
npm run typecheck
paseo plugin install "$PWD"
paseo plugin reload pi-plugin-mcowger

npm install patches broken declaration probes in third-party dependencies and builds the vendored pi/MCP SDK bundle required by Paseo's plugin compiler. See docs/packaging.md for the details.

Pi configuration

The plugin uses pi's normal configuration directory, including:

• ~/.pi/agent/settings.json
• ~/.pi/agent/auth.json
• ~/.pi/agent/extensions/
• ~/.pi/agent/packages

Presets are managed by Paseo in the plugin's host-scoped settings document. The plugin no longer reads pi presets.json files. Project-local .pi settings and resources are loaded for the active workspace.

Development

npm run build:vendor
npm run lint
npm run typecheck
npm test
npx vitest run --config vitest.smoke.config.ts

Set PI_SMOKE_MODEL to override the smoke-test model. The default is plexus/gemini-3.5-flash-lite.