@luan.sh/pi-view-image  

@luan.sh/pi-view-image adds a Codex-compatible view_image tool to Pi. A native Rust binary reads and validates a local PNG, JPEG, GIF, or WebP file and returns it as a Pi image content block, so any vision-capable model can look at a file that is already on disk. The same package makes pasted image paths in the Pi editor attach as images and labels image attachments in the Codex format before they reach the provider.

Preview

Watch the demo.

Install

pi install npm:@luan.sh/pi-view-image

Requires a Rust toolchain (https://rustup.rs). The view-image binary builds itself on first use under Pi's agent directory (native/view-image/<version>/). Set PI_VIEW_IMAGE_BIN to use a prebuilt binary; it must point to an executable file. Pi shows an info notification while the first build runs.

Code Mode support is bundled. If @luan.sh/pi-code-mode is also installed (pi install npm:@luan.sh/pi-code-mode), view_image is callable from inside Code Mode scripts as described below; without it the tool is still available as a normal Pi tool.

The view_image tool

Parameters:

Name	Type	Notes
path	string, required	Absolute path or a path relative to the Pi session's working directory. A leading @ is stripped. file_path and image_path are accepted as aliases.
detail	"high" or "original", optional	Defaults to high.

Example call:

{ "path": "screenshots/current.png", "detail": "original" }

Behaviour:

• high resizes images larger than 2000 pixels on either axis (Anthropic's limit for requests carrying more than 20 images). Resized images and GIF input are re-encoded as PNG; PNG, JPEG, and WebP files that are not resized keep their original bytes and MIME type.
• original keeps the source dimensions and bytes.
• The detail parameter is only exposed to models that support it. For the openai-codex provider it requires the model's compat.supportsImageDetailOriginal flag; every other provider with image input gets it. When a model does not support it, a requested original silently falls back to high.
• Any Pi model that declares image in its input capabilities can use the tool. Other models get the error view_image is not allowed because the current model does not support image inputs before the file is read.
• The tool result contains one image content block. Its details record the input, the resolved path, MIME type, width, height, byte size, and duration in milliseconds.
• Errors from the binary (missing file, unsupported format, decode failure) are surfaced as the tool error message, truncated to 8192 characters.

Inside Code Mode

The tool is also registered through @luan.sh/pi-code-mode/sdk. In a Code Mode script, view_image returns { image_url, detail }, where image_url is a base64 data: URL. Forward it with image(result) so the model sees the image:

const result = await tools.view_image({ path: "screenshots/current.png" });
image(result);

Pasting image paths into the editor

In the TUI, when a paste contains a single path to an existing PNG, JPEG, GIF, or WebP file (checked by file signature, not just extension), the path is replaced inline with an [Image #N] pill. Accepted forms: absolute paths, paths relative to the working directory, ~/ paths, file:// URLs, quoted paths, and shell-escaped paths. This covers Pi's clipboard image paste (Pi writes the bitmap to a temporary file and inserts its path) and terminals that paste a file path on Command-V. Ordinary text and non-image paths are left alone.

When the prompt is submitted, each pending pill is loaded through the native binary at high detail, attached as an image, and its text becomes a <file name="..."></file> tag. If a file cannot be loaded, the pill reverts to the plain path and Pi shows a warning Could not attach <path>: <message>. Pending pills are cleared on session start and shutdown.

Codex-style image labels

Before each request is sent to the provider, user messages whose first text block contains <file name="..."> tags with image extensions (bmp, gif, jpg, jpeg, png, webp) and a matching number of image blocks are rewritten. Each image tag becomes:

<image name=[Image #N] path="...">
<the image block, detail high>
</image>

followed by the rest of the user's text. Tags are only rewritten when the count of image tags equals the count of image blocks; otherwise the message is left unchanged. This applies to Pi's own @image attachments and to pastes handled by this package, and is provider-neutral.

The same hook then clamps every image block in the outgoing context, in user and tool-result messages alike, to 2000 pixels on either axis using Pi's resizeImage. Anthropic rejects larger images once a request carries more than 20 of them, and attach-time resizing cannot fix images already in the session history. Each distinct image is decoded once per session. Shrinking an image that Anthropic has already seen changes the request prefix, so the next response reports dropped thinking blocks once; pi-thinking-binding then strips those blocks for the rest of the session.

Configuration

The package has no settings. The only configuration is the PI_VIEW_IMAGE_BIN environment variable described under Install. It registers no keybindings; pasting uses the editor's normal paste path.

Layout

Responsibility	File
Pi registration and lifecycle	src/extension.ts
Tool schema, aliases, model capability checks	src/tools/view-image/definition.ts
Tool result and details shape	src/tools/view-image/result.ts
Tool call and result rendering	src/tools/view-image/presentation.ts
Native binary discovery and build	src/native/binary.ts
Running the binary and parsing its JSON	src/native/view-image.ts
Codex-style <image> labeling in the context hook	src/native-attachments.ts
Pasted image path detection and pending attachment tokens	src/core/attachments.ts
Turning pending tokens into attached images on submit	src/runtime/attachments.ts
Editor paste handler and pill rendering	src/runtime/editor-attachments.ts
Code Mode adapter	src/code-mode-adapter.ts
Icon and pill appearance	src/core/appearance.ts

Develop

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