@luan.sh/pi-collapse-transcript  

@luan.sh/pi-collapse-transcript folds runs of tool calls and thinking blocks in Pi's fullscreen transcript into one collapsed activity row. The row shows the latest tool action or the latest provider-supplied thinking heading, a step count, and a failure count. Click it to expand the run back into the original tool renderers and thinking Markdown. User messages, assistant prose, errors, and other entries stay visible and separate one run from the next.

It is a Pi extension, not a model-facing tool. It changes only how existing transcript components are laid out on screen. Session history, tool output, and model-visible content are never rewritten.

Preview

Watch the demo.

Install

pi install npm:@luan.sh/pi-collapse-transcript

That is the only step. The package ships its rendering library and mouse host with it and registers both through package.json; nothing else needs to be installed. It runs inside Pi (@earendil-works/pi-coding-agent with @earendil-works/pi-tui); 0.84.2 is the tested version.

Optional companion: pi install npm:@luan.sh/pi-xsettings adds the /xsettings UI for the shared appearance settings (activity indicator, text effects, animation speed) that the collapsed row uses; without it the compiled defaults apply.

Use it

There are no commands, tools, actions, or side-panel tabs. The extension does its work on session_start:

• In interactive TUI mode it installs a hidden widget (pi-collapse-transcript.host) that mounts a transcript projection over Pi's chat container.
• In fullscreen mode, consecutive thinking and tool entries become one ActivitySection. Its header row shows the summary, a N steps count, and M failed when any tool in the run failed. The row animates while any entry is still running.
• Clicking the row toggles between collapsed and expanded. Expanded content is the original components, so tool renderers, thinking Markdown, and libtui's scrolling and fold controls behave as they do natively.
• Entries that are not tools or thinking (content entries) are rendered unchanged and end the current run.
• Streaming updates keep the current fold state and refresh the header summary as new headings arrive. Loading a session rebuilds collapsed sections.
• On session_shutdown, or when the widget is disposed, the projection is released and Pi's native rendering returns.

Regular scrollback mode keeps native rendering: mountTranscriptProjection projects entries only when tui.mode === "fullscreen", because Pi's clickable transcript controls need the fullscreen surface.

Header summary

activitySummary picks the header text:

• Tool entries use the tool's own summary with leading punctuation stripped.
• Thinking entries use the last **bold** or # heading in the final 8,000 characters of the thought; without a heading they use the first line of the last paragraph, and finally the literal Thinking. No summary is invented.
• The result is passed through sanitizeTuiFieldPreview, which removes control sequences and caps the text at 240 characters.

Settings and keybindings

The package registers no settings, no actions, and no keybindings. The only input it handles is a mouse press on the activity row, provided by the bundled @luan.sh/pi-libtui mouse host. There is nothing to add to ~/.pi/agent/keybindings.json for this package. The running indicator and text effects follow @luan.sh/pi-libtui's shared appearance settings (activityIndicator, default spinner; textEffect, default off; animationSpeed, default normal; and the other keys documented in the @luan.sh/pi-libtui README). These are edited via /xsettings when @luan.sh/pi-xsettings is installed; otherwise the defaults apply.

Library API

import { ActivityTranscript } from "@luan.sh/pi-collapse-transcript" gives a ComponentStack that takes an entry reader, a Pi Theme, and a requestRender callback. It groups TranscriptEntry values from @luan.sh/pi-libtui/tool and owns the fold state of each section. Pass it to mountTranscriptProjection to use it outside this extension, or render it directly in tests. It has no native binary.

Native boundary

@luan.sh/pi-libtui/tool supplies the versioned transcript bridge. It reads Pi 0.84–0.85 private transcript fields, guards each node's shape, and fails open: when the document layout does not match, when a node is not a recognised assistant or tool component, or when a projection is already installed, the transcript is left untouched. Unknown nodes and native error notices render as they are.

Layout

Responsibility	Owner
Pi registration, widget lifecycle, session hooks	src/extension.ts
Grouping entries into sections and fold state	src/activity-transcript.ts (ActivityTranscript, ActivitySection)
Header text for a run	activitySummary in src/activity-transcript.ts
Public exports	src/index.ts
Native transcript bridge	mountTranscriptProjection in @luan.sh/pi-libtui/tool
Row rendering, motion, folding, mouse	ToolActivity, ComponentStack, and the mouse host in @luan.sh/pi-libtui
Tool execution	None; existing tools run unchanged

Develop

Source: https://github.com/luan/agents, directory harnesses/pi/agent/packages/pi-collapse-transcript. Run bun run typecheck and bun test test in that directory.

test/transcript.test.ts drives a real TuiAltScreen with native AssistantMessageComponent and ToolExecutionComponent instances and checks collapse, click expansion, streaming updates, failure counts, unmount behaviour, and summary sanitisation.