@benvargas/pi-openai-verbosity

Per-model text verbosity overrides for pi's openai-codex provider.

Why This Exists

This extension was originally created because pi sent OpenAI Codex provider requests with the default Responses API text verbosity, which made some models, especially gpt-5.5, noticeably more verbose than the Codex CLI. The goal was to align openai-codex/gpt-5.5 with Codex CLI behavior by setting:

{
  "text": {
    "verbosity": "low"
  }
}

pi has since shipped an upstream fix: OpenAI Codex Responses requests now default to low verbosity when no explicit verbosity is provided.

That upstream change addresses the original gpt-5.5 issue, but it also means pi now defaults every openai-codex model to low. That may not be ideal for all model slugs. For example, you may prefer low on gpt-5.5, but medium on an older or different model such as gpt-5.3-codex.

This extension now provides the missing user-facing control: per-slug verbosity settings for pi's openai-codex provider.

Requires pi 0.57.0 or newer.

What It Does

The extension uses pi's before_provider_request hook to rewrite outgoing provider payloads for configured openai-codex/<model> keys.

For matching models, it sets:

{
  "text": {
    "verbosity": "low | medium | high"
  }
}

Non-matching models are left unchanged.

Install

pi install npm:@benvargas/pi-openai-verbosity

Or try without installing:

pi -e npm:@benvargas/pi-openai-verbosity

Usage

Run pi with the extension enabled:

pi -e npm:@benvargas/pi-openai-verbosity --model openai-codex/gpt-5.5

Use /openai-verbosity status inside pi to report the configured rewrite for the current model. The command also reloads the config file.

Config

Config files follow pi's project-over-global pattern:

• Project: <repo>/.pi/extensions/pi-openai-verbosity.json
• Global: ~/.pi/agent/extensions/pi-openai-verbosity.json

If neither exists, the extension writes a default global config on first run.

Example config:

{
  "models": {
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.5": "low",
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.4": "low",
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.3-codex": "medium",
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.3-codex-spark": "medium",
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.2": "medium"
  }
}

Settings:

• models: object mapping openai-codex/<model-id> strings to low, medium, or high.

Project config overrides global config per model key. Any model not listed is left unchanged, which means pi's native default behavior applies.

Default Config

By default, the extension preserves the original workaround behavior and sets known supported OpenAI Codex models to low:

{
  "models": {
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.4": "low",
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.5": "low",
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.4-mini": "low",
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.3-codex": "low",
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.3-codex-spark": "low",
    "openai-codex/gpt-5.2": "low",
    "openai-codex/codex-auto-review": "low"
  }
}

You can change any value to medium or high to override pi's native low-verbosity default for that model.

Debugging

Pi does not currently expose a simple CLI flag to print the final provider request body. To verify this extension is matching and rewriting a request, set PI_OPENAI_VERBOSITY_DEBUG_LOG to a JSONL file path.

Variable	Description
PI_OPENAI_VERBOSITY_DEBUG_LOG	Set to a file path to enable debug logging. Matching requests write "before" and "after" JSON entries with the full provider payload. Non-matching requests write one "skipped" entry.

PI_OPENAI_VERBOSITY_DEBUG_LOG=/tmp/pi-openai-verbosity.jsonl \
  pi -e npm:@benvargas/pi-openai-verbosity \
  --model openai-codex/gpt-5.3-codex \
  -p "Reply in one short sentence."

Then inspect the last entries:

tail -n 5 /tmp/pi-openai-verbosity.jsonl | jq .

These entries include prompts, messages, tools, and the rest of the provider payload, so keep the file local and delete it when you are done debugging.

Notes

• This extension only changes outgoing provider request payloads.
• Existing text fields are preserved, and only text.verbosity is replaced.
• Only the openai-codex provider is supported.
• This extension is most useful if you want different verbosity settings for different OpenAI Codex model slugs.

Uninstall

pi remove npm:@benvargas/pi-openai-verbosity

License

MIT