pi-qol

Quality-of-life extension for Pi: compact statusline, multiline input, session naming and search, scheduled prompts, notifications, and a permission gate.

Highlights

• Compact statusline with repo, branch, model, thinking level, and context percent; can be disabled.
• Newline-insert in the editor (multi-line drafts without auto-submit), with a fallback binding for terminals that can't distinguish the primary key.
• Sessions auto-name from your first prompt. /rename overrides anytime.
• /search browses previous sessions with snippet previews; the configured shortcut opens it instantly.
• Session search reads prompt snippets line-by-line, so very large session JSONL files do not have to be materialized just to browse, search, or import context.
• /context shows a Claude-style context-window breakdown.
• /handoff <goal> drafts a focused prompt for a new session.
• /schedule 20m <message> or /schedule 1h45m <message> sends a delayed prompt without invoking the model until the timer fires.
• Optional rate-limit auto-resume sends a configurable continuation after reset.
• Permission gate prompts before risky bash commands. Default match: rm -Rf.
• Notifications for ready, questions, blocked states, and task completion.
• Thinking timer next to collapsed Thinking... labels.
• Caveman badge and a mode-cycling shortcut when pi-caveman is loaded.
• Subagent-name badge in pi-agents-tmux child panes.

Install

Via npm:

pi install npm:@vanillagreen/pi-qol

Via vstack:

cargo install --git https://github.com/vanillagreencom/vstack.git vstack
vstack add vanillagreencom/vstack --pi-extension pi-qol --harness pi -y

Restart Pi after installation.

Commands

Command	Action
/qol	Open settings (or print status if extension-manager isn't installed).
/qol notify-test	Send a test notification.
/rename [name]	Set or show the current session's name.
/qol:rename	Regenerate the session name from the first prompt.
/qol:rename:full	Regenerate from the full conversation.
/context	Show context-window usage with category breakdown.
/search [query]	Open previous-session search.
/search:refresh	Refresh the session search cache.
/handoff <goal>	Draft a handoff prompt for a new session.
/schedule <delay> <message>	Send a user message after a timer without invoking the model now. Example: /schedule 1h45m retry the previous request.

Arguments support autocomplete.

/schedule accepts ms, s, m, h, and d units; bare numbers mean minutes. Compact composite durations are accepted in largest-to-smallest order, like 1h45m, 45m10s, or 1h45m30s. Pending prompts render above the statusline like steering/follow-up previews until they are sent or cancelled. Manage pending prompts with /schedule list and /schedule cancel <id|all>. Schedules are stored in the Pi session and re-armed on reload/resume; if Pi is not running at the due time, an overdue prompt sends when that session is next loaded.

Settings

Open /extensions:settings; settings appear under the QOL tab. Names below match the labels shown there.

Glyph style: each package exposes glyphStyle (unicode default, ascii for terminal-safe chrome). @vanillagreen/pi-tool-renderer.globalGlyphStyleOverride=ascii forces ASCII chrome across vstack Pi extensions while leaving tool/model/user content unchanged.

Statusline

Setting	What it does
Enable QOL editor helpers	Master toggle for QOL statusline, commands, notifications, search, compaction, and editor helpers.
Show compact statusline	Render or disable the QOL statusline row.
Replace built-in footer	Hide Pi's default footer while the QOL statusline is enabled.
Use π prompt editor	Use the compact prompt editor.
Show session name title	Show the session name above the prompt and in the tmux pane title.
Sync session name to tmux window name	Rename the tmux window to π <session>.
Input bottom padding	Blank lines below the prompt.
Show dirty marker	Append * to the branch when the worktree is dirty.

Input

Setting	What it does
Newline-insert binding	Insert a newline instead of submitting.
Fallback newline binding	Alternate binding for terminals that can't send the primary one.
Style pending queue preview	Highlight Pi's pending-queue preview with a green left bar.
Style image chips	Render [Image #N] placeholders as distinct chips.
Show attachment count	Show a status badge when the draft has image placeholders.

Session

Setting	What it does
Enable /rename command	Register the /rename command.
Enable /schedule command	Register /schedule for timer-based prompts, useful for retrying after rate limits reset.
Auto-resume after rate limits	Send the configured continuation after a detected reset; cancels on newer turn.
Auto-name new sessions	Generate a friendly session name from the first prompt.
Auto-rename model	Model used for title generation.
Auto-rename fallback model	Model tried when the primary fails.
Deterministic fallback	Title-case words, truncated prompt, or none if all model calls fail.
Auto-rename prefix	Optional static prefix on every generated name.
Notify on auto-rename	Show a notification when auto-renaming.

Advanced: input cap, title length, output tokens, timeout, custom prompt template, and debug logging.

Handoff

Setting	What it does
Enable /handoff command	Register the /handoff command.
Review handoff prompt	Open an editor to edit the generated prompt before creating the session.

Context window

Setting	What it does
Enable /context command	Register /context.

/context also estimates the serialized payload size of the messages that would be sent on the next request. When that payload crosses Transcript-risk warn budget (chars) a Transcript risk block appears below the compact buffer section even if token count is still under the context window — useful for catching large blob-shaped tool outputs that inflate the request long before token count alone would page anyone. If transcript-risk estimation itself errors, /context shows a sanitized error in the same block rather than silently hiding the warning.

Session search

Setting	What it does
Enable session search	Register /search and the overlay.
Session search shortcut	Configurable; set to none to disable.
Result limit	Max matching prompts returned.
Visible session rows	Rows shown before scrolling.
Preview snippets	Matching snippets shown on the preview screen.
Session cache TTL	Seconds before the session list refreshes; 0 keeps it until you run /search:refresh.

Summary settings (model, max tokens, input cap) tune the summarizer when you import context from a previous session.

Notifications

Master toggle: Enable notifications.

Triggers (notify when): ready, direction needed, question popups, all tasks complete, critical/blocked.

Channels: terminal bell, Mute bell sound, native terminal notifications (OSC 777/99 or Windows toast), tmux display-message, tmux window marking, OSC passthrough, and an optional in-Pi UI notice.

Tuning: cooldown seconds, title, ready message, body length, tmux durations.

Notes:

• Terminal notification protocol picks between OSC 99 (Kitty) and OSC 777 automatically.
• Bell when tmux window active is off so you don't get bells while looking at Pi.
• Mute bell sound keeps notification routing enabled but suppresses QOL-emitted BEL bytes and uses ST terminators for OSC 777/99 where supported. Terminals or operating systems may still play their own sound for native notifications outside QOL control.
• tmux native via client TTY sends OSC notifications to attached tmux clients so notifications still appear when the Pi window is inactive.

Use /qol notify-test to verify your terminal/tmux setup, including silent behavior with Mute bell sound enabled.

Permission gate

Setting	What it does
Prompt before risky bash commands	Ask before bash commands matching the command list.
Commands to prompt for	Comma-separated literal fragments or /regex/flags.
Approval preview lines	Cap the approval-prompt preview height.
Approval preview characters	Cap the approval-prompt preview width.

Off by default. When enabled, non-interactive matches are blocked.

Compaction

Setting	What it does
Custom compaction summaries	Use QOL summaries instead of Pi's default.
Compaction model	Summarizer model. Defaults to current, meaning Pi's active model; set a provider/model when you want a dedicated larger-context summarizer.
Compaction detail profile	concise, balanced, or exhaustive.
Include previous summary	Pass the previous summary for iterative continuity.
Fallback to Pi default compaction	Run Pi's default compaction if QOL's fails.
Show compaction notifications	Notify on compaction start/fail/complete.
Custom branch summaries	Use the QOL summarizer for /tree branch summaries.
Remote compaction endpoint	Call a remote HTTP summarizer instead of a model.
Idle compaction trigger	Auto-compact after the session sits idle above a token threshold.

Idle thresholds (token threshold, idle delay, fixed token limit, percent limit) tune when idle compaction fires.

Long-session budget guard

For autonomous/Flightdeck-style runs the agent never goes idle, so idle compaction may never fire and the transcript can grow until provider/buffer limits hit. The budget guard runs on agent_end (not idle) and starts a compaction immediately when context usage crosses a percent of the model window or an absolute token limit. It fires once per threshold crossing — repeated agent_end events above the same threshold do not retrigger it, and the crossing key resets on a successful compaction or on a transient compaction failure (so the next agent_end retries).

Setting	What it does	Default
Long-session budget guard	Master toggle for the agent_end budget guard.	on
Budget guard percent	Context-window percentage that fires the guard. -1 disables percent-based firing.	85
Budget guard token limit	Absolute tokens that fire the guard. -1 uses percent only.	-1
Chunked compaction input cap	Max serialized characters per summarization request. Long transcripts are chunked, summarized chunk-by-chunk, then tree-reduced — every model/remote request (chunk + every reduce pass) is bounded so the compaction call itself cannot exceed provider buffer limits. 0 disables chunking.	240000
Write pre-compaction handoff artifact	Before compaction, write ~/.pi/agent/vstack/sessions/<session>/pi-qol/handoff/<timestamp>.json plus a latest.json pointer containing previous summary, last task state, and referenced files/artifacts. Write failures surface as a QOL warning notification and a handoffArtifactError field in the compaction details.	on
Transcript-risk warn budget (chars)	/context shows a warning when the serialized payload of messages-to-send exceeds this many characters, even if tokens are still below the context window. 0 disables.	600000

When the budget guard fires it injects a sentinel into the compaction request so the QOL bounded handler always runs — chunked summarizer + handoff artifact — even if Custom compaction summaries is off. Manual compactions (/tree, idle compaction, user-triggered) still only use the QOL handler when Custom compaction summaries is on; otherwise they fall through to Pi's default compaction with no handoff artifact and no chunking. If you want every compaction to use the QOL bounded path, turn Custom compaction summaries on.

While budget-guard compaction is running, QOL keeps a persistent status line above the prompt (and in the normal status footer when the compact statusline is disabled). After Pi prints the compacted-summary block, the line changes to QOL budget guard finalizing compaction… until ctx.compact() reports completion, so long reload/finalization gaps do not look frozen.

Recommended values for autonomous/Flightdeck runs:

• Keep Long-session budget guard on. Lower Budget guard percent to 75 if your provider buffers are tight.
• Optionally turn Custom compaction summaries on so user-initiated and idle compactions also use the QOL chunked summarizer + handoff artifact. (Budget-guard-triggered compactions always use them regardless of this setting.)
• Lower Chunked compaction input cap to ~`120000` when the summarizer model has a small context window.

Thinking

Setting	What it does
Hidden thinking label	Label shown when thinking blocks are hidden.
Show thinking timer	Show elapsed time next to collapsed Thinking... labels.
Working indicator mode	animated ticks every 80ms; switch to static if you see flashes when the chat overflows.