pi-ollama

Auto-discover and register Ollama models in pi. No more hand-editing models.json.

Whenever you ollama pull a new model, it shows up in /model automatically — no restart, no JSON editing.

Install

pi install npm:@jamesjfoong/pi-ollama

Or test drive without installing:

pi -e npm:@jamesjfoong/pi-ollama

What it does

1. On startup — fetches models via OpenAI-compatible /v1/models (falls back to Ollama native /api/tags)
2. Registers them as the ollama provider, overriding any static models.json entry
3. Skips embedding models by default
4. Enriches metadata — context length, vision, reasoning via /api/show
5. Caches results for offline/stale fallback
6. Rotates API keys — supports multi-key pools with automatic failover on auth errors
7. Interactive setup — arrow-key driven TUI wizard with endpoint presets
8. Inspect models — /ollama-info shows model capabilities
9. Guided model fixes — /ollama-fix corrects vision/thinking/context behavior when Ollama metadata is wrong

Commands

Command	What it does
/ollama-setup	Interactive TUI setup — edit endpoint, key pool, filter, etc.
/ollama-refresh	Re-fetch models from Ollama without restarting pi
/ollama-status	Show endpoint, source (live/cache), model count, key pool, cache age
/ollama-doctor	Diagnose endpoint/auth/cache/enrichment state
/ollama-fix	Guided fixes for model vision/thinking/context behavior
/ollama-info	Inspect a model's capabilities and applied fixes

Configuration

Priority: env vars → persisted config file → existing models.json fallback → defaults

The easiest way to configure is /ollama-setup — no need to set environment variables or edit JSON.

/ollama-setup (interactive)

Run /ollama-setup inside pi for a keyboard-driven config dialog:

1) Base URL     : https://ollama.com
2) API Key      : abc*** (+2 more)
3) Auth Header  : on
4) Filter       : (none)
5) Test connection
6) Save & discover
7) Cancel

• ↑↓ navigate options, Enter to pick
• Pick "Base URL" to choose from presets (local, cloud, custom)
• Pick "API Key" to enter single key or comma-separated pool
• "Test connection" verifies the endpoint before saving
• Pick "Save & discover" to persist and register models

Settings are saved to ~/.pi/agent/pi-ollama.json.

Persistent config file

Settings are saved to ~/.pi/agent/pi-ollama.json:

{
	"baseUrl": "https://ollama.com",
	"apiKey": "your-key",
	"apiKeys": ["key1", "key2"],
	"authHeader": true,
	"filter": ""
}

This file is auto-created and updated by /ollama-setup. You can also edit it directly.

Model fixes and overrides

Ollama's /api/show metadata is the baseline for context length, vision, and thinking support. Some models still need local fixes — for example, a model may report thinking support but require a specific thinking format, or a model may be listed as vision-capable but fail on image input.

Use /ollama-info to inspect the final pi config for a model, and /ollama-fix for guided fixes. Fixes are saved as exact per-model overrides in ~/.pi/agent/pi-ollama.json:

{
	"modelOverrides": {
		"kimi-k2.6": {
			"reasoning": true,
			"input": ["text"],
			"contextWindow": 128000,
			"maxTokens": 16384,
			"compat": {
				"thinkingFormat": "qwen-chat-template"
			}
		}
	}
}

Advanced users can also apply defaults or regex-based fixes before exact overrides:

{
	"globalModelDefaults": {
		"compat": {
			"supportsDeveloperRole": false,
			"supportsReasoningEffort": false
		}
	},
	"modelOverridePatterns": [
		{
			"match": ".*qwen.*",
			"override": {
				"reasoning": true,
				"compat": { "thinkingFormat": "qwen-chat-template" }
			}
		}
	]
}

Merge order is: Ollama discovery → globalModelDefaults → modelOverridePatterns in order → exact modelOverrides. Overrides only fix discovered models; they do not create new model entries.

Environment variables

Variable	Default	Description
OLLAMA_BASE_URL	http://localhost:11434	Ollama API endpoint (/v1 suffix is auto-stripped)
OLLAMA_API_KEY	ollama	API key or env-var name
OLLAMA_API_KEYS	(none)	Comma-separated key pool for rotation
OLLAMA_API	openai-completions	API type used by pi
OLLAMA_FILTER	(none)	Regex to whitelist models (e.g. llama|qwen)
OLLAMA_CACHE_TTL_MS	900000	Cache TTL in milliseconds
OLLAMA_CACHE_TTL_MIN	(none)	Cache TTL in minutes (used if *_MS not set)
PI_OLLAMA_DEBUG	0	Enable verbose extension logs (1 or true)

Tip: If you already have an ollama provider in ~/.pi/agent/models.json, this extension reads baseUrl, apiKey, api, and compat from it as a fallback. You can remove the static models array from models.json.

Examples

Local Ollama (default):

# nothing to set
pi

Remote / cloud Ollama:

OLLAMA_BASE_URL=https://ollama.com \
OLLAMA_API_KEY=your-api-key \
pi

Multi-key pool (automatic rotation on auth failures):

OLLAMA_API_KEYS="key1,key2,key3" pi

Only keep llama and qwen models:

OLLAMA_FILTER="llama|qwen" pi

Migration from models.json

If your models.json looks like this:

{
  "providers": {
    "ollama": {
      "baseUrl": "http://localhost:11434",
      "apiKey": "ollama",
      "api": "openai-completions",
      "compat": { ... },
      "models": [
        { "id": "llama3.1:8b" },
        { "id": "qwen2.5-coder:7b" }
      ]
    }
  }
}

You can replace it with:

{
  "providers": {
    "ollama": {
      "baseUrl": "http://localhost:11434",
      "apiKey": "ollama",
      "api": "openai-completions",
      "compat": { ... }
    }
  }
}

Then install pi-ollama and the models array is managed automatically.

How it works

pi starts
    │
    ├─► extension fetches /v1/models  (OpenAI-compat)
    │   └─► fallback to /api/tags   (Ollama native)
    │   └─► rotates through apiKeys on 401/403
    │
    ├─► enriches metadata via /api/show
    │
    ├─► applies local model fixes / overrides
    │
    ├─► registers provider "ollama" with discovered models
    │
    ├─► saves results to cache for offline fallback
    │
    └─► models available in /model, --list-models, Ctrl+P

Compatibility

• Local Ollama (http://localhost:11434) — works out of the box
• Remote Ollama endpoints (authenticated or unauthenticated) — set OLLAMA_BASE_URL
• OpenAI-compatible proxies in front of Ollama — OLLAMA_API=openai-completions

Uninstall

pi remove git:github.com/jamesjfoong/pi-ollama

Development

Want to hack on this or test local changes before contributing?

Quick test without installing:

git clone https://github.com/jamesjfoong/pi-ollama.git
cd pi-ollama
npm install
pi -e ./extensions/       # runs extension directly — no build step needed

Persistent setup (survives across pi sessions):

# Symlink into pi's global extensions directory
ln -s "$(pwd)/extensions" "$HOME/.pi/agent/extensions/pi-ollama"

Then in pi, make a code change and run /reload — updates are picked up immediately.

Run checks before committing:

npm run typecheck    # Ensure TypeScript compiles
npm run test         # Run unit tests
npm run format:check # Verify formatting

See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full development guide, architecture overview, and workflow.

License

MIT w.

License

MIT