@creative-int/pi-prompts

Shared system-prompt scaffolding for @mariozechner/pi-coding-agent forks. Removes the duplicated boilerplate across *-mono specialist runtimes: date/time injection, working-directory footer, project context files, available-skills XML block, and the tool-aware guidelines bullet list.

Forks supply the domain-specific body (identity paragraph, core expertise, principles, domain docs pointer, and fork-specific tool descriptions). This package wraps that body with the shared scaffolding.

Install

pnpm add @creative-int/pi-prompts

Minimal example

import {
  STANDARD_TOOL_DESCRIPTIONS,
  buildStandardGuidelines,
  buildSystemPrompt,
  renderToolsList,
} from "@creative-int/pi-prompts";

// 1. Merge your domain tool descriptions onto the standard set.
const toolDescriptions = {
  ...STANDARD_TOOL_DESCRIPTIONS,
  apple_project_analyze: "Analyze Xcode project structure, targets, Swift packages, frameworks, codebase metrics",
  apple_concurrency_audit: "Audit Swift concurrency — data races, missing Sendable, isolation issues, Swift 6 readiness",
};

// 2. Build the domain body. Forks own the identity + principles + domain docs pointer.
const body = `You are Apple Mono, a specialist coding agent for Apple platform development.

## Core expertise

### UIKit (interaction-critical UI)
- UICollectionView with CompositionalLayout + DiffableDataSource
- Custom UIPresentationController and interactive transitions

Available tools:
${renderToolsList(selectedTools, toolDescriptions)}

Guidelines:
${[...buildStandardGuidelines(selectedTools), "60fps or bust — every transition at 60fps"].map((g) => `- ${g}`).join("\n")}
`;

// 3. Compose the final prompt. pi-prompts appends context/skills/date/cwd.
const prompt = buildSystemPrompt({
  body,
  selectedTools,
  contextFiles,
  skills,
});

Why

Before this package, every fork's src/core/system-prompt.ts duplicated:

• getCurrentDateTimeString() — locale-formatted "Current date and time"
• formatSkillsForPrompt(skills) — <available_skills> XML block + escaping
• buildStandardGuidelines(tools) — tool-aware guideline bullets (Prefer grep/find/ls over bash, Use read before edit, etc.)
• renderProjectContextSection(files) — # Project Context block
• STANDARD_TOOL_DESCRIPTIONS — descriptions for the seven standard tools

7 forks × ~150 lines of duplicated scaffolding = real drift risk. This package owns the primitives once; forks import them and keep only the domain body and principles in their repo.

Exports

Export	Purpose
buildSystemPrompt(options)	Canonical composer. Wraps a fork's body with shared scaffolding.
buildStandardGuidelines(selectedTools)	Tool-aware guideline bullet list.
renderToolsList(selectedTools, descriptions)	Bulleted "Available tools" list from a name→description map.
STANDARD_TOOL_DESCRIPTIONS	Descriptions for read, bash, edit, write, grep, find, ls.
STANDARD_TOOL_NAMES	The seven standard tool names.
getCurrentDateTimeString(now?)	Locale-formatted "Current date and time" string.
renderProjectContextSection(files)	# Project Context block from file snippets.
formatSkillsForPrompt(skills)	<available_skills> XML block.
PromptSkill, PromptContextFile, BuildSystemPromptOptions	Shared types.

Compatibility

PromptSkill is a minimal subset of the Skill type fork-local skills.ts files define. Fork-local types are structurally assignable to PromptSkill, so callers can pass their richer type directly without adapters.

Scope

This package owns prompt composition only. It does not ship tools, extensions, or agent-runtime primitives. See sibling pi packages:

• @creative-int/pi-tools — tool-pack contract + composition helpers (composePackFactories, whenEnabled)
• @lnittman/pi-steer — steering compiler + pickup/handoff synthesis
• @lnittman/pi-pad — persistent execution memory
• @creative-int/pi-outline — outline-powered structural analysis (private lane)

The shared standard-tools baseline (bash/read/write/edit/grep/find/ls implementations, as opposed to just their descriptions) is a separate extraction tracked under rules/mono-ecosystem.md as @creative-int/pi-shell (TBD).