@jmcombs/pi-prompt-enhancer

A Pi coding agent extension that rewrites rough user prompts into precise, codebase-aware ones — before they reach the model. The enhanced prompt is loaded back into the editor for your review, so you stay in control of what gets submitted.

Install

# Globally (recommended)
pi install npm:@jmcombs/pi-prompt-enhancer

# For a single session, without installing
pi -e npm:@jmcombs/pi-prompt-enhancer

No external API keys are required. The enhancer uses whichever Pi model is currently active in your session (or one you pick interactively via /enhance-model).

What It Adds

• Command /enhance [text] — enhance the provided text, or the editor's current contents if no argument is given.
• Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+P — enhance the editor's current contents in place.
• Command /enhance-revert and Shortcut Ctrl+Shift+Z — restore the editor to the prompt that was there immediately before the most recent /enhance. Cleared after one revert (single-step undo) and also when you submit a non-command prompt.
• Command /enhance-model — interactively pick which model to use as the enhancer for the current session. Choice is held in memory and resets on restart.
• Persistent widget above the editor — a two-line panel showing Prompt Enhancer and the model the enhancer will use. Soft messages (cancelled, reverted, nothing-to-enhance, model-changed, etc.) appear as a third line for ~4 seconds and then auto-clear. Hard errors still surface as Pi notifications.
• Footer hint chips — a Ctrl+Shift+P to enhance prompt chip is always visible from the start of every session. After a successful /enhance, a second Ctrl+Shift+Z to revert to previous prompt chip appears next to it, and disappears once you revert or submit a new prompt.

How It Works

When you trigger an enhancement, the extension gathers (in parallel):

1. Project directory tree — up to 3 levels deep, max 100 entries, skipping node_modules, .git, dist, build, coverage, and similar artifact directories.
2. Git context — current branch, git status --short, and the last 8 commits via git log --oneline. 3-second timeout per call; failures are silently ignored (works fine outside a git repo).
3. Mentioned file contents — filenames or paths referenced in your prompt are resolved relative to cwd, verified to exist, and read up to 100 lines each (capped at 3 files; unreadable files are silently skipped).

That context plus your original prompt is sent to the configured enhancer model. While the request is in flight, a BorderedLoader covers the editor; pressing Esc cancels at any point and restores your original text.

On success the enhanced prompt is loaded into the editor and you receive a notification to review it before submitting. Press Ctrl+Shift+Z (or run /enhance-revert) to restore your original prompt; the revert affordance is single-step and clears automatically once you submit a new prompt.

Note: Pi's terminal Ctrl+Z is bound to app.suspend (it sends SIGTSTP to the OS and suspends Pi to the background — you can resume with fg in the shell). The extension uses Ctrl+Shift+Z instead for revert, which doesn't collide.

Model Selection

By default the enhancer uses the same model that's currently active in your Pi session (ctx.model). Run /enhance-model to open an interactive picker showing every model that has a configured API key. Your choice persists for the lifetime of the session only — restarting Pi or starting a new session resets it back to the default.

Behavior Notes

• Nothing is submitted to the LLM automatically. The flow always ends with the enhanced prompt sitting in your editor awaiting your review.
• An empty prompt, no model, or a model with no configured API key produces a notification and a no-op return — your editor is never modified.
• Cancellation (Esc) and errors both restore the original prompt and notify you.
• The extension makes no network calls of its own — it only invokes Pi's existing model interface, which means anything that works in your pi setup (local models, OpenRouter, Anthropic direct, etc.) works here.

Requirements

• Pi >= 0.72.0
• Node >= 20.6.0
• At least one Pi-configured model with an API key (any provider)

Development

This package lives in the pi-extensions monorepo.

# From the repo root
npm ci
npm run check       # full quality gate

# Try local changes against a real pi session
pi -e ./packages/prompt-enhancer

The smoke test in index.test.ts does not mock the LLM API; it only verifies registration shape (commands, shortcuts). Real end-to-end behavior is exercised manually via pi -e.

License

MIT © Jeremy Combs