@gotgenes/pi-nocd

Pi extension that appends an instruction to the system prompt forbidding the agent from cd-prefixing the current working directory.

Why

Pi already tells the agent the resolved CWD: its system prompt ends with a Current working directory: <path> footer, and that line survives downstream shaping (for example pi-anthropic-auth, which only rewrites the preamble span and preserves the footer).

What Pi ships nowhere — default or shaped — is any instruction against cd-prefixing the CWD. The footer is a bare statement of fact, not a rule, so the habit of prefixing commands with cd $(pwd) && survives.

This extension hooks before_agent_start and appends a block that adds the missing prohibition — forbidding both the literal cd <path> && form and the generic cd $(pwd) && form. It repeats the literal resolved path (from ctx.cwd) only to make the forbidden cd <path> && example concrete, not because the path is otherwise unavailable to the agent.

Install

pi install npm:@gotgenes/pi-nocd

Or add it to your Pi settings (~/.pi/agent/settings.json):

{
  "packages": ["npm:@gotgenes/pi-nocd"]
}

What it injects

For a session whose working directory resolves to /Users/you/project, the following block is appended to the system prompt:

# Working Directory

Shell commands already execute in `/Users/you/project`.
Never prefix a command with `cd` into the current working directory — neither `cd /Users/you/project &&` nor `cd $(pwd) &&`.
Just run the command directly.

The append is idempotent: if a # Working Directory block is already present (e.g. another before_agent_start handler added one), the prompt is returned unchanged.

How it works

Hook	Behavior
before_agent_start	Appends the working-directory block, naming the resolved ctx.cwd, to the prompt

License

MIT