pi-afk-mode

A Pi extension for walking away. /afk keeps the agent working until every remaining item is genuinely blocked on a decision only you can make.

pi install npm:pi-afk-mode

How it works

• /afk (or /afk on|off) toggles AFK mode. Switching it on while the agent is idle starts it working immediately.
• Every time the agent finishes a turn and settles, it gets a nudge: finish open tasks, verify with tests/builds, review the diff, tidy up, pick up the next unblocked item.
• The agent is only left alone after it calls the afk_blocked tool with a concrete list of { work, decision } pairs. Nudging pauses; the status bar shows afk: blocked on you.
• Typing anything resets that: you're back, or you just answered. Nudging resumes after your turn.
• The mode is stored in the session, so /resume picks it up. /new starts clean.

Guardrails

• Nudge cap: 25 nudges per /afk on (status bar shows afk 7/25). Toggle /afk to reset. Costs are bounded even if the agent never declares itself blocked.
• Abort / error: no nudge after an aborted turn (you pressed Escape, you're at the keyboard) or an errored turn (don't loop on failures).
• Async subagents: if pi-subagents has queued or running async children for this session, the agent is not nudged. Their completion wakes the session; the next settle nudges as usual. Detected by reading the same status.json files pi-subagents uses for its own outstanding-work check, so no dependency and no configuration. Without pi-subagents installed the check is a no-op.

The nudge

The user is AFK. Continue productive work autonomously: finish open tasks, verify with tests/builds, review your own diff, tidy up, then pick up the next unblocked item.

Only when EVERY remaining item genuinely requires a human decision, call the afk_blocked tool listing each blocker and the exact decision needed. Do not stop or ask questions otherwise — no one is reading.

It is sent as a visible custom message (customType: "afk-nudge"), so it shows in the transcript and the model can see it is not you.

Known limits

• A crashed subagent that leaves a stale running status behind suppresses nudges until pi-subagents reconciles it.
• If the model stops without calling afk_blocked and without making progress, you pay for up to 25 idle turns. Lower MAX_NUDGES in afk.ts if that bothers you.

Development

npm install
npm run typecheck
npm test          # node --test, no framework
pi -e ./afk.ts    # try it in a session

MIT