@zerosnow/pi-shimmer

Gentle per-character color sweep for pi's working message (vibes).

pi-shimmer transparently wraps ctx.ui.setWorkingMessage to intercept plain-text messages set by other extensions (like pi-powerline-footer's AI-generated vibes) and applies a moving highlight-band animation across the text.

Inspired by the shimmer implementation in @dustydonkey/pi-spinner.

Features

• Transparent monkey-patch — no changes needed in other extensions
• 6 built-in color presets + auto (follows theme accent)
• Idle-aware — pauses shimmer when the agent is waiting (no flicker)
• Lightweight — configurable interval, per-character ANSI RGB coloring

Install

pi install npm:@zerosnow/pi-shimmer

Usage

The extension activates automatically on session start. Configure it via the /shimmer command, or by editing your settings files:

• Global (all projects): ~/.pi/agent/settings.json (pi's standard location)
• Project (overrides global): .pi/settings.json in your project root

Commands

/shimmer                    Show current preset (and where it takes effect)
/shimmer <preset>           Switch preset (auto|gold|silver|rose|neon|rainbow|off)
/shimmer speed <ms>         Set animation interval (default 200, min 50)
/shimmer band <width>       Set highlight band width (default 4, range 1-10)

Append `--global` (or `-g`) anywhere to save to the **global** settings file
instead of the current project, e.g.:

/shimmer --global gold /shimmer speed 150 -g /shimmer band 3 --global

Without the flag, config is written to the current project's `.pi/settings.json`
(which overrides global). If the project file can't be written, the command
reports an error instead of silently dropping the change.

Settings

// ~/.pi/agent/settings.json (global) or .pi/settings.json (per-project)
{
  "workingVibeShimmer": "auto"              // string shorthand
  // or full object:
  "workingVibeShimmer": {
    "preset": "gold",
    "speed": 150,
    "bandWidth": 3
  }
}

Config is merged like pi settings: project overrides global, global overrides defaults. Fields are merged individually, so you can override just one field (e.g. project sets only "preset" while the global speed/bandWidth remain).

⚠️ Global config lives in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json (pi's standard location), not ~/.pi/settings.json. The latter is not read by pi.

Presets

Preset	Base	Shimmer
auto	theme accent	lightened accent
gold	dark gold (184,134,11)	bright gold
silver	grey (128,128,128)	light silver
rose	muted rose	warm rose
neon	teal (10,138,138)	cyan (0,255,255)
rainbow	rolling neon marquee	seven rainbow hues
off	— (disabled)	—

License

MIT