Pi git Research

Tools for researching and exploring Git repositories with Pi agent. Clone, update, and summarize codebases on the fly.

Why pi git Research

Codebase Exploration — Quickly download and orient yourself in a new repository. Perfect for researching dependencies, libraries, or competitor codebases.

Smart Defaults — Uses shallow clones (--depth 1) and hard resets to keep research fast and your workspace clean.

Automated Summarization — Automatically extracts directory structure, README content, and latest commit info to give you immediate context.

Install

Option 1: Install from npm (recommended)

pi install npm:@mjakl/pi-git-research

Option 2: Install via git

pi install git:github.com/mjakl/pi-git-research

Option 3: Manual Installation

Clone this repository into your project-local or global Pi extensions directory:

cd .pi/extensions # or ~/.pi/agent/extensions
git clone https://github.com/mjakl/pi-git-research.git
cd pi-git-research
npm install

Configuration

You can configure where repositories are checked out.

Option 1: CLI Flag

pi --repo-base-dir ~/Projects/research

Option 2: settings.json Add this to your global or project settings.json:

{
  "gitResearch": {
    "baseDir": "~/Projects/research"
  }
}

If not configured, repositories are cloned into your current working directory.

Tools

git_repo

Clone or update a git repository for research.

• url: Repository URL (supports GitHub shorthands like user/repo).
• branch: (Optional) Specific branch or tag.
• shallow: (Optional) Use shallow clone (default: true).

git_repo_summary

Get a quick overview of a cloned repository.

• path: Path to the local repository.
• depth: (Optional) Directory tree depth (default: 2).

git_repo_versions

List branches and tags available in a repository (local or remote).

Skills

explore-repo

A high-level skill that coordinates the tools to download, summarize, and explain a repository in one go.

/explore-repo https://github.com/mariozechner/pi-coding-agent

Comparison to Built-in Tools

Feature	Built-in Bash	This Extension
Cloning	Manual git clone	Automatic normalization & updating
Updates	Manual fetch/reset	One-call hard reset & clean
Context	None	Automatic README & tree extraction
Workflow	Multiple steps	Integrated explore-repo skill

License

MIT