pi-lence

A quieter Pi conversation, with a response browser and session-local named pins. Runs independently of Herdr, in regular and fullscreen Pi.

Unpublished release candidate. Requires a compatible Pi installation; tested with Pi 1.3.0. Uses Pi's runtime: no separate Node installation, compiler or pnpm setup is required for Pi-lence. Its Node >=22.19.0 package metadata matches that host's runtime requirement; Pi's installer can arrange Node for you.

The tarball contains TypeScript, its manifest, this README and the canonical MIT license. Wildcard host peers do not promise compatibility with every Pi version. Maintenance is personal-first and best-effort; see the repository's maintenance policy.

Install

Until publication, an explicitly chosen checkout can be installed locally:

pi install /absolute/path/to/agent-dev/pi/pi-lence
pi

This changes your personal Pi settings. Keep the checkout at that path. To update, use git pull --ff-only there, then /reload or restart Pi. To remove it:

pi remove /absolute/path/to/agent-dev/pi/pi-lence

Removal unregisters the package; it does not delete your checkout or saved pins. pi list shows the registered source. If the checkout moved, remove its old source and install the new path. Do not load the same extension twice with an additional -e argument.

After an approved npm publication, the intended command will be pi install npm:@grepco/pi-lence. That public installation is not available or verified yet. Local tarball tests do not establish npm scope access or registry installation. For a no-registration trial, use pi -e /absolute/path/to/agent-dev/pi/pi-lence/src/reference-ui.ts instead.

Use

Regular mode leaves mouse handling to your terminal; use the keyboard controls. Terminal support for modified shortcuts varies. Naming uses Enter to save and Escape to cancel. Empty names are rejected. Arrows and PageUp/PageDown scroll; Home/End reach the ends of a response. Resize a very small terminal if prompted.

The browser opens on Pins. All includes earlier assistant responses, which can be pinned retroactively. Search matches response text and pin names in the current tab, not thinking or tool output. Browsing never submits/replaces your draft or calls the model. Reader positions last until the extension reloads.

Pins belong to stable message IDs on the active session branch. They are stored as append-only response-references.pin.v1 entries, outside model context. Resume restores them; a fork excludes pins targeting abandoned history. Use a saved session, not --no-session, to keep pins across exits.

Quiet / Raw

Quiet hides successful routine calls/results for read, write, edit, bash, powershell, grep, find and ls. It does not change tool execution, history, model context, your messages, assistant prose or your thinking-display setting. Raw restores native rendering, including its collapsed state: Ctrl+O expands native tool output. The reference browser contains assistant prose, not tool results.

Pi's ordinary Working indicator stays intact. After 60 seconds without a model/tool update, its label uses the native warning color:

Working · no updates for 90s · bash

New activity, completion, cancellation, session replacement and reload clear the override. Open extension dialogs suppress it; native retry/compaction indicators retain their own wording and priority. Polling does not count as activity.

This is a warning, not stall detection: healthy silent work and a hung command can look identical. A chatty hung process can look active; sleeping the computer can increase the reported age. Use Raw to inspect details.

Failed results and unfamiliar tools remain visible. Native dialogs, notifications, provider errors and cancellation displays are not replaced. Warnings embedded in otherwise successful shell output cannot reliably be recognized and may be hidden. There is no cross-session pin library or automatic checklist updating.

Development and evidence

From a prepared repository checkout:

mise exec -- pnpm --filter @grepco/pi-lence check
mise exec -- pnpm --filter @grepco/pi-lence pack:candidate -- /tmp/pi-lence-candidate

Use a fresh output directory; packing refuses to overwrite an existing tarball. It prints the artifact path and SHA-256, stages consumer-only metadata and copies the root license without modifying source. It does not publish.

The full check includes formatting/types/lint, fast regressions, a separately identified pinned-SDK smoke, and real-host tests against the packed artifact. Expect roughly two minutes for the real elapsed-time warning cases. check:contracts is the faster subset, not the complete acceptance gate.

Hosted CI results identify the tested revision and any current failures; passing Linux checks do not create a distro-support or ongoing maintenance commitment.

Real-host tests cover managed tarball install/reinstall/removal, print/JSON/RPC, regular/fullscreen UI, keyboard and fullscreen mouse access, saved pins, new/resume/fork/reload, dialogs, errors, draft preservation, resize/Unicode, and actual warning completion/cancellation. They use private homes and a network-free test provider, not personal credentials or a normal installation.

The SDK smoke uses some private host components and controlled events; it is not substituted for those CLI tests. Live-provider retries, actual computer sleep, public registry installs and a comprehensive release security review remain outside this evidence. The initial owner daily-use trial is accepted; no new soak period is required.

See the repository's development protocol for the disposable interactive demo and cleanup. Styling and README wording remain subject to owner review before publication.

License

MIT. Every candidate tarball includes the repository's canonical LICENSE.