@tylerho/pi-prompt-stash

Saves and restores the editor's draft text in a single slot via ctrl+s, Claude Code style.

Install

pi install npm:@tylerho/pi-prompt-stash

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Prompt Stash

Prompt Stash saves the editor draft to a single in-memory slot and clears the editor. Pressing the shortcut again with an empty editor puts the draft back. A footer status line shows a preview while the slot holds a draft.

Claude Code lineage

The stash semantics come from Claude Code's chat:stash action: one slot that overwrites on a second stash, raw untrimmed text, a whitespace-only editor counting as empty, and a restore that clears the slot. Claude Code binds the action to ctrl+s in its chat context, so this extension binds ctrl+shift+s and leaves the ctrl+s builtins alone. No Claude Code version appears in the source, the commit messages, or the earlier docs, so the release the semantics came from is not recorded.

How it works

ctrl+shift+s and /stash call the same handler and do the same thing. The handler reads the editor text and the slot, then picks one of three actions.

• Editor has text: store the text raw and untrimmed and clear the editor. The text keeps its leading and trailing whitespace and newlines. A second stash overwrites the first, so the slot holds one draft and never stacks.
• Editor is empty or whitespace-only and the slot has a draft: restore the draft and empty the slot.
• Editor is empty and the slot is empty: do nothing.

The slot is a module-level string | undefined, outside any session. It survives session rebinds such as /new, /resume and /fork within one process. A full /reload re-imports the module and drops the draft. The slot holds text only, because pi's editor API exposes no pasted images.

A held key autorepeats, and pi filters key releases but not repeats. Without a guard the held key would cycle stash and restore. The handler ignores toggles closer than REPEAT_WINDOW_MS = 300 milliseconds and writes the timestamp even on a suppressed toggle, so a long hold stays suppressed until the key is released.

A stash calls ctx.ui.setStatus("prompt-stash", "stashed: <preview>") and sends no notification, because clearing the editor is visible feedback on its own. A restore calls ctx.ui.setStatus("prompt-stash", undefined) and ctx.ui.notify("Draft restored", "info").

The extension binds ctrl+shift+s because ctrl+s is pi's built-in app.thinking.save, plus the picker-scoped app.models.save and app.session.toggleSort. An extension shortcut on ctrl+s shadows the builtin and warns at load.

API

No tools, no events, no config files, no settings. Two registrations plus three exported functions.

The shortcut registration is pi.registerShortcut("ctrl+shift+s", { description: "Stash the current prompt draft, or restore the stashed draft", handler: toggleStash }). The handler type is (ctx: ExtensionContext) => Promise<void> | void, and it runs from the default editor's key handling.

The command registration is pi.registerCommand("stash", { description: "Stash the current prompt draft, or restore the stashed draft (same as ctrl+shift+s)", handler: async (_args, ctx) => toggleStash(ctx) }). It ignores arguments and behaves the same as the shortcut.

The handler uses four ctx.ui methods plus a headless guard:

• getEditorText(): string reads the current draft.
• setEditorText(text) clears the editor on a stash and fills it on a restore.
• setStatus("prompt-stash", string | undefined) sets the footer status. Any footer that renders status keys shows it, for example expanded-footer.md.
• notify("Draft restored", "info") reports a restore.
• if (!ctx.hasUI) return; keeps headless sessions from toggling.

The extension exports three pure functions for its tests. shouldToggle(now, lastToggleAtMs) returns true when now - lastToggleAtMs >= 300. decideStashAction(editorText, stashedText) returns { action: "stash", text }, { action: "restore", text } or { action: "noop" }, and the stash text is the raw editor text. stashPreview(text, max = 40) squashes whitespace runs into single spaces, trims the result and truncates to max characters ending in …. The default export has type (pi: ExtensionAPI) => void, and importing ./index.ts has no side effects.

Examples

1. Stash a half-written prompt. Mid-draft, ctrl+shift+s clears the editor and the footer shows prompt-stash: stashed: <first 40 characters, whitespace squashed>…. With an empty editor, ctrl+shift+s restores the draft byte for byte and shows the Draft restored notification.
2. Run /stash instead. The command does the same work without a key binding, which helps in RPC and other non-TUI contexts.
3. Overwrite the slot. Stash draft A, type draft B and stash again. Draft A is gone and a restore yields draft B.
4. Do nothing. With an empty editor and an empty slot, ctrl+shift+s changes no status and sends no notification. A whitespace-only editor counts as empty and restores when the slot has a draft.