echo

A read-only side-channel question asker for pi sessions and project code.

Echo adds a /ask command that spawns an isolated pi side-process with only read-only tools enabled. Answers are shown to you and stored in extension history, but they are not injected into the main agent context — so you can probe the session and project without polluting the conversation that's doing real work.

Install

pi install npm:@anton-kochev/echo

Pin to a version:

pi install npm:@anton-kochev/echo@<version>

For local development from a checkout of pi-extensions:

pi install ./echo

Project-local install:

pi install ./echo -l

Temporary test run:

pi -e ./echo

Pithos .pithos config

pi:
  extensions:
    "@anton-kochev/echo": "npm:0.1.0"

Commands

Inside pi:

/ask [--model <provider/model>] [--] <question>
/asked
/ask-clear

• /ask — ask Echo a question.
• /asked — browse previous Echo answers interactively with ↑/↓ and open one with Enter.
• /ask-clear — clears any stale Echo widget left by older versions.

What Echo can access

Echo launches an isolated Pi side process with only read-only tools enabled:

• read
• grep
• find
• ls

It does not receive bash, edit, or write. Echo runs from the current project directory, so it can inspect source code and project files read-only.

Session context strategy

Echo uses progressive disclosure to keep token usage low:

1. A small recent-session excerpt is included in the side-agent prompt.
2. The full current-session transcript is written to a temporary markdown file.
3. The side agent is instructed to inspect that transcript only when needed, preferably with targeted grep/read calls.
4. The temporary transcript is deleted after the side process exits.

Examples

/ask what is this session about?
/ask what files define the extension loading behavior?
/ask --model anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5 summarize the recent decisions
/asked

Notes

This package imports pi runtime packages as peer dependencies:

• @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent
• @earendil-works/pi-tui
• typebox

Do not bundle those dependencies; pi provides them at runtime.

extensions/index.ts is a thin jiti trampoline that disables jiti's module cache for src/echo.ts, so editing the implementation and running /reload always evaluates the newest code.