@hanxu131/pi-autotitle

A pi extension that generates a session title from the current conversation. The /title command summarizes the conversation with the current session model, applies smart trimming for long conversations (anchor the first user message + keep a recent window), then shows a preview with confirm / regenerate / edit / cancel before setting the session display name.

Install

pi install npm:@hanxu131/pi-autotitle@0.1.0

Then run /reload to activate. The command registers as /title.

For local development:

pi -e ./extensions/autotitle.ts

Usage

Command	Behavior
/title	Extract conversation → trim if needed → generate title with the current model → preview dialog → set session name
/title <custom name>	Skip the model entirely and set the session name directly

Interactive keys (TUI)

Key	Action
Enter	Accept the generated title and set it as the session name
R	Regenerate (unlimited retries, result updates in place)
E	Edit the title (prefilled with the current result; clearing the input and submitting regenerates)
Esc	Cancel — the existing session name is left unchanged

Non-TUI modes (print / json / rpc) set the title directly without a dialog. Setting confirm: false in the config skips the dialog in TUI mode too.

Configuration

Config is read on every command invocation (hot-reload friendly). All keys are optional; missing keys fall back to defaults.

File	Scope
~/.pi/agent/autotitle.json	Global (all projects)
.pi/autotitle.json	Project-local, overrides global (only read when the project is trusted)

Reference

Key	Default	Description
maxLength	60	Maximum title length in characters (prompt constraint, not a hard truncation)
prefix.enabled	true	Allow a [Type] prefix when the conversation type is clear
prefix.types	["Bug", "Feature", "Question", "Refactor", "Docs"]	Candidate types for the prefix
language	"follow"	"follow" uses the conversation's dominant language; "zh" / "en" force a language
trim.threshold	15000	Estimated-token threshold that triggers trimming
trim.window	8000	Most-recent tokens kept after trimming
trim.anchorChars	500	Truncation length for the first user message (the topic anchor)
confirm	true	Show the preview dialog; false sets the title directly

Example:

{
  "maxLength": 80,
  "prefix": {
    "enabled": true,
    "types": ["Bug", "Feature", "Question", "Refactor", "Docs"]
  },
  "language": "follow",
  "trim": {
    "threshold": 15000,
    "window": 8000,
    "anchorChars": 500
  },
  "confirm": true
}

How trimming works

When the extracted conversation (user + assistant text only) exceeds trim.threshold estimated tokens, only a reduced excerpt is sent to the model:

1. The first user message is kept as the topic anchor, truncated to trim.anchorChars characters.
2. The most recent messages are kept up to trim.window tokens.
3. An omitted-messages note is inserted between the anchor and the recent window.

Edge cases

• Empty session or no extractable text → warning notification, no model call.
• No model selected (ctx.model undefined) → error notification, no model call.
• Model call failure / empty or garbled result → error shown in the dialog (retry or cancel); the existing session name is preserved in both TUI and non-TUI modes.
• Running /title when the session already has a custom name → normal flow, the preview lets you back out.

License

MIT