@blazer2k/pi-ui-enhancements

Visual polish and compact tool rendering for pi.

Current version: 0.1.0

Overview

This extension adds visual improvements to pi's TUI:

• Configurable ASCII art header at session start, rendered via figlet or the bundled Greek pi fonts.
• Rounded border around the editor showing cwd, git branch, model, token usage, and context percentage.
• Shimmer animation on the "Working" label with elapsed duration and an interrupt hint.
• Compact tree-drawing summaries for tool output instead of verbose raw output. Paths are hyperlinked when your terminal supports it. Third-party tools get wrapped too (see below).
• Optional capitalization for custom tool call labels, enabled by default.

Installation

pi install npm:@blazer2k/pi-ui-enhancements

Or install locally for development:

git clone https://github.com/blazer2k/pi-blz.git
cd pi-blz
npm install
pi -e ./packages/pi-ui-enhancements/src/index.ts

Configuration

Run /ui in pi to open the settings menu.

Available Settings

Setting	Description
Enable ASCII header	Show ASCII art header at session start
Header font	Font for ASCII art header (19 figlet fonts + 2 bundled, default: Greek)
Header color	Theme color of ASCII header (text, accent, dim)
Header alignment	Horizontal alignment (left, center, right)
Show version	Display pi version below ASCII header
Show interrupt hint	Show "esc to interrupt" next to the working indicator
Show run duration	Show elapsed time while working, toast on completion
Patched built-in tools	Which built-in tool renderers to replace (essential or all)
Patch custom tools	Apply compact rendering to third-party tools
Capitalize tool names	Capitalize custom tool call labels (default: true, e.g. search → Search)
Max call width	Maximum width for tool call and output lines
Max expanded entries	Maximum lines when expanding tool output (-1 for unlimited), doesn't apply to bash
Editor border color	How the editor border is colored (thinking, dim, muted)
Show thinking level	Display thinking level in editor footer
Show cache tokens	Display cache read/write token counts
Show cost	Display total session cost in editor footer
Show git branch	Display current git branch in editor header

Built-in Tool Patches

The patchedBuiltInTools setting has two modes:

• essential (default): read, write, edit, bash
• all: adds ls, find, grep

Changes here require /reload since tool renderers are registered at load time. Everything else applies immediately.

Third-Party Tool Monkey-Patching

By default, the extension monkey-patches ExtensionRunner.prototype.getAllRegisteredTools to intercept third-party tool definitions and wrap their output in the same compact format. Built-in tools and tools with renderShell: "self" are left alone.

Custom tool call labels are capitalized by default while preserving the tool's own renderCall() layout when possible. For example, mcp becomes Mcp.

If you prefer third-party tools to render natively, disable patchCustomTools in the settings menu. If you prefer lowercase custom tool labels, disable capitalizeToolNames.

Persistence

Settings are saved to ~/.pi/agent/ui-settings.json and restored on each session. Override the path with PI_UI_ENHANCEMENTS_CONFIG_PATH.

License

MIT