@aarvay/pi-synthetic-provider

pi extension that registers Synthetic as a custom model provider.

Installation

Try it once without installing:

pi -e npm:@aarvay/pi-synthetic-provider

Install permanently into your user settings:

pi install npm:@aarvay/pi-synthetic-provider

Or install into a project (.pi/settings.json):

pi install -l npm:@aarvay/pi-synthetic-provider

Features

• Registers the four stable syn:* aliases synchronously at startup — no network calls while pi loads, works fully offline
• Refreshes the full live catalog (aliases plus direct hf:* models) whenever pi refreshes model catalogs: background refresh at startup, opening the /model dialog, /login, or pi update --models
• Per-model thinking levels derived from Synthetic's advertised reasoning efforts, including max on models that support it
• Tracks per-token pricing for cost estimation
• Normalizes context overflow errors for automatic compaction and retry

Authentication

Synthetic requires an API key for inference. pi resolves the key in this priority order:

1. ~/.pi/agent/auth.json entry:

   {
     "synthetic": {
       "type": "api_key",
       "key": "syn-..."
     }
   }
   

2. SYNTHETIC_API_KEY environment variable

Models

The static aliases are always available:

• syn:large:text — Large text model (currently GLM-5.2)
• syn:small:text — Small text model (currently GLM-4.7-Flash)
• syn:large:vision — Large vision model (currently Kimi-K3)
• syn:small:vision — Small vision model (currently Qwen3.6-27B)

Aliases automatically route to Synthetic's latest recommended model per category. After any model refresh, the full live catalog — including direct hf:* models — appears alongside the aliases. Run pi update --models to refresh on demand, or open /model in an interactive session.

Use /model in pi to select a model.

Development

Test locally from the repo root without publishing:

pi -e ./packages/synthetic-provider

Troubleshooting

Models not updating: The live catalog is fetched during pi's model refresh, not at startup. Run pi update --models, or check your network:

curl https://api.synthetic.new/openai/v1/models

The four static aliases remain available even when the API is unreachable.

API key errors: Verify your key is set via echo $SYNTHETIC_API_KEY or configured in ~/.pi/agent/auth.json.

License

MIT