pi-thinking-ui

Faithful, terminal-native thinking visualization for pi. Replaces pi's built-in thinking renderer with a three-mode (collapsed / summary / expanded) view that summarizes, classifies, and renders reasoning blocks as they stream.

Features

• Three view modes — collapsed (one line), summary (key steps), expanded (full reasoning)
• Semantic step roles — each step is classified (inspect, plan, compare, verify, write, search, error) with a matching icon and color
• Extractive summaries — surfaces failures, decisions, and concrete artifacts (file paths, commands, symbols) instead of meta-chatter
• Per-scope state — view mode is tracked per working directory so different projects keep their own preference
• Persistent defaults — save a default mode for the current project or globally
• Live mode switching — cycle modes mid-session without restarting
• Redacted-reasoning fallback — shows a stable placeholder when the provider hides reasoning

Install

Requires the pi CLI.

From npm (recommended)

# Global (user) install — available in every project
pi install npm:@fyeeme/pi-thinking-ui

# Project-local — written to .pi/settings.json, shareable with your team
pi install -l npm:@fyeeme/pi-thinking-ui

# Pinned version — skipped by `pi update`
pi install npm:@fyeeme/pi-thinking-ui@1.0.0

# Try it once without saving (current run only)
pi -e npm:@fyeeme/pi-thinking-ui

From GitHub

Source: fyeeme/pi-packages.

# HTTPS shorthand
pi install git:github.com/fyeeme/pi-packages
# Pin to a tag or commit (skipped by `pi update`)
pi install git:github.com/fyeeme/pi-packages@v1.0.0
# Raw URL form
pi install https://github.com/fyeeme/pi-packages

See the Pi Packages guide on pi.dev for the full list of source types, scopes, and pi update behavior.

Usage

Action	Effect
Alt+T	Cycle the current session's view: collapsed → summary → expanded
/thinking-ui	Cycle the view, or open a mode picker in interactive mode
/thinking-ui collapsed	Set the session view to collapsed (also: summary, expanded)
/thinking-ui project expanded	Save expanded as the default for this project
/thinking-ui global summary	Save summary as the default everywhere
/thinking-ui project clear	Remove the saved project default

Aliases are accepted for modes: c/collapse → collapsed, s/summaries → summary, e/expand/full → expanded.

On startup the view mode is restored from (in order): the current session's saved mode, the project default, the global default, then summary.

Requirements

Pi patches an internal assistant-message component at runtime. If pi's internals are incompatible with the patch, the extension logs a warning and falls back to pi's native thinking renderer for that session; persisted defaults still apply to future compatible sessions.