pi-editor-shell

Replaces pi's default editor and status bar with a unified rounded-corner shell drawn with box-drawing glyphs (╭╮││╰╯), with status info embedded in the border. The frame and spinner use only standard Unicode; the six border icons are Nerd Font glyphs (overridable — see Configuration).

What shows up where

• Top border —  model ·  thinking-level (left) + pinned extension statuses (right, via pinnedStatus config)
• Bottom border —  ctx NN%/NNk|N.NM · ⚡ cacheRead (total)  hitRate% · NN.N e2e t/s · $N.NNN (left) +  ~/Projects (main +2 ~1 *4) (right, shows git branch plus staged, unstaged, and untracked file counts when in a repo; inside a linked worktree the branch carries an @<name> tag, e.g. (feature-x @feature-x +2 ~1), so sibling worktrees of one repo are told apart at a glance). Response throughput defaults to client-observed end-to-end visible-text throughput, including local request preparation, network and queue latency, hidden reasoning, and visible generation. It can instead show generation throughput or be hidden; see Throughput display. A new turn clears the previous measurement, so unavailable samples never leave stale data in the border. Session cost includes assistant, tool, compaction, and branch-summary usage; the dollar segment is hidden when the provider reports no priced usage. Session hit rate and detailed response timing are available via /editor-shell:status.
• Below shell — Auto-wrapping extension status line (all setStatus entries not pinned to the top)
• Border color follows pi's thinking-level / bash-mode indicator automatically.

All segments are re-read from live session state on every paint, so switching thinking level or burning context updates the frame on the next render with no extra wiring. When the agent is active, the current phase spinner (thinking/outputting/toolcall/exec) replaces the model text in the top-left slot.

Configuration

In ~/.pi/agent/settings.json under the editorShell key:

{
  "editorShell": {
    "pinnedStatus": ["subagent", "access-denied"],
    "tpsDisplay": "end-to-end",
    "icons": {
      "model": "robot",
      "cache": "\\uf0e7"
    }
  }
}

Default icons

Slot	Glyph	Nerd Font name
model		oct-cpu
thinking		oct-light_bulb
context		oct-cache
cache	⚡	oct-zap
hitRate		fa-bullseye
folder		fa-folder_open

Model display

How the model is labeled in the top-left border ("name" by default):

{
  "editorShell": {
    "modelDisplay": "name"
  }
}

Value	Example
"name" (default)	Claude Opus 4.8
"provider-id"	anthropic/claude-opus-4-8

"name" uses model.name; a model with no name falls back to its id, so the slot never goes blank.

Throughput display

Choose the response-throughput metric shown in the bottom border ("end-to-end" by default):

{
  "editorShell": {
    "tpsDisplay": "end-to-end"
  }
}

Value	Border label	Measurement
"end-to-end" (default)	e2e t/s	Visible output tokens divided by total turn duration, including wait time and hidden reasoning
"generation"	gen t/s	Visible tokens after the first divided by the time from first visible text to response completion
"none"	—	Hides response throughput from the border

Both throughput values, time to first visible text, total response time, visible-token count, and token source remain available via /editor-shell:status. Generation samples below 10 visible tokens or 250 ms are reported as unavailable. Responses containing tool calls cannot provide a portable text-token split. If reasoning is active but the provider does not supply a usable positive reasoning-token count, both throughput values are reported as unavailable rather than treating hidden tokens as visible output.

Commands

Command	Description
/editor-shell:status	Show debug info: config, extension statuses, cache totals, response wait time, end-to-end and generation throughput, token source, and session cost

How it works

The default pi editor only draws a horizontal line above and below the input area (no side borders), and a separate footer renders the status bar. This extension replaces both — it wraps the built-in CustomEditor, renders it at width - 2, wraps every line with left/right glyphs, and embeds the status bar information (extension statuses) below the shell. The total width is unchanged. Border color follows pi's borderColor (which encodes thinking level / bash mode), so the shell stays semantically consistent and reacts to theme changes automatically.

When the autocomplete popup is open, the divider between editor content and popup items becomes a T-junction (├─┤) carrying the context/cwd info, closing everything into one connected card with two panes. Below MIN_WIDTH (20 columns), it falls back to the default editor.

Installation

pi install npm:@d3ara1n/pi-editor-shell

Or add to ~/.pi/agent/settings.json:

{
  "extensions": [
    "/absolute/path/to/pi-extensions/packages/pi-editor-shell"
  ]
}

Caveats

• Mutually exclusive with other editor-replacing extensions (border-status-editor, rainbow-editor, modal-editor, …). Disable those when enabling this one — setEditorComponent is last-writer-wins.
• When the content scrolls, pi's native ↑ N more / ↓ N more indicators are replaced by the embedded status text (status takes precedence).
• Falls back to the default editor below MIN_WIDTH (20 columns).

Dependencies

None.