pi-codegraphcontext

A Pi coding-agent extension for CodeGraphContext, keeping a code-graph index healthy for every session and makes it effortless for the agent to use.

What It Is

A single Pi extension that wraps the cgc CLI, evaluates the index lifecycle at session start, syncs drift automatically, and surfaces everything the agent needs: slash commands, a status widget, CLI-gap tools, and routing guidance.

Why It Exists

Code-graph answers are only as good as the index behind them. Without a gate, agents either skip the graph (stale or missing index) or block on it (busy, corrupt). This extension makes the graph always ready or honestly unavailable, never silently wrong.

[!NOTE] Graph relationship tools (analyze_code_relationships, find_dead_code, find_code, …) are registered by the CGC MCP server, not by this extension. The extension owns everything around them: the lifecycle, the freshness, the status surfaces, and the gaps in the MCP catalog.

Features

Capability	What you get
Index lifecycle gate	Every session start classifies the workspace (unavailable, unindexed, busy, indexing, rebuilding, drift, syncing, clean, corrupt) and routes accordingly — one-time notices, background indexing, or a silent skip
Freshness sync	Drift between the working tree and the graph is detected and auto-synced (bounded per session), so graph answers stay trustworthy as code changes
Status HUD	A persistent widget shows index state at a glance — no commands needed
Slash commands	/cgc status, /cgc index, /cgc sync, /cgc rebuild, /cgc report, /cgc doctor for explicit control
Proactive context	A one-shot session note (at most once, even across mid-session readiness transitions) tells the agent what the graph can answer
Worktree contexts	Optional isolate mode maps git worktrees to dedicated CGC contexts (--context wt-<id>), with durable identity-verified mappings and fail-closed mismatch handling
Output economy	CGC tool output is size-capped, secrets are redacted, and oversized results spill to disk with archive IDs instead of flooding the context window
CLI-gap tools	cgc_bundle_export, cgc_context, and cgc_doctor wrap the CGC verbs the MCP catalog does not expose
Agent guidance	An always-on routing guideline card (graph-vs-text tool choice) plus an on-by-default (opt-out) cgc-routing skill

Everything is fail-open: a guard error is recorded, retried at most once per session, and never blocks the agent loop. Detection errors degrade honestly (for example, a malformed .git pointer simply means "not a worktree") instead of producing wrong answers.

Requirements

• Pi coding agent (@earendil-works/pi-coding-agent is used as a peer dependency).
• The CodeGraphContext CLI (cgc) installed and set up, available on PATH, or pointed at via CGC_EXECUTABLE. See the CGC indexing guide for installing and preparing the CLI.

Installation

1. Install and setup CodeGraphContext (see the CodeGraphContext documentation):

   cgc --version
   

2. Add the extension to Pi. Either the published package:

   # in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json
   {
     "packages": ["npm:pi-codegraphcontext"]
   }
   

   …or a local clone:

   {
       "packages": ["/path/to/pi-codegraphcontext"]
   }
   

3. Start (or /reload Pi). On the first session in a repository you get exactly one honest notice: either "indexing in the background" (lifecycle.autoCreate) or "not indexed — here is how to enable auto-create" (default).

[!TIP] No configuration is required for the default experience. Every behavior below has a working default; the configuration section exists to change defaults, not to enable features.

Usage

Slash Commands

All commands live under /cgc:

Command	Purpose
/cgc status	Workspace state, freshness, and recent activity
/cgc index	Force (re)index now
/cgc sync	Reconcile graph/disk drift on demand
/cgc rebuild	Drop and rebuild the index
/cgc report	Write the CGC quality report to a confirmed path
/cgc doctor	Bounded diagnostic render (connection, parser, backend health)
/cgc config	In-session settings modal (TUI); read-only table elsewhere

Automatic Behavior

On every session_start the gate classifies the workspace and acts:

• clean → silent skip, zero maintenance invocations
• drift → background sync (bounded by freshness.maxSyncsPerSession)
• unindexed → background indexing if lifecycle.autoCreate, else one honest notice
• busy → skip with a one-time notice (never fights a running index)
• corrupt → one-time report with a rebuild offer; nothing destructive happens uninvited
• unavailable → one-time warning naming every enablement route (CGC_EXECUTABLE, config files, PATH)

The status HUD reflects all of this live; no command is needed to see the state.

What the Agent Gets

• CGC MCP graph tools (from the CGC MCP server) for relationship, structure, and code health questions — see the MCP tools documentation.
• The always-on guideline card steering tool choice: graph for relationships, built-in search for exact strings.
• The cgc-routing skill (on by default; opt out with guidance.routingSkill: false) with intent-first tool-choice detail — model-invocable for autonomous routing, user-executable via /skill:cgc-routing.
• The CLI-gap tools filling the MCP catalog gaps.
• The agent guide — the deep, intent-first reference the card and skill link to.

Configuration

Configuration is resolved in this order (each layer overrides the previous one):

1. Built-in defaults
2. Global config file — $PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR/cgc.json (default ~/.pi/agent/cgc.json)
3. Project config file — .pi/cgc.json (wins on conflict)
4. Environment variables (for headless/CI setups)

Only keys present in a config file are applied; invalid values are skipped with a warning and fall back to the lower layer.

In-Session Settings (/cgc config)

/cgc config opens a settings modal inside a TUI session (outside the TUI it renders a read-only key/value/source table instead):

• Every config key is shown with its effective value and source — built-in default, config file (project or global), or environment override.
• Environment-overridden keys are read-only, naming the winning variable: editing a file cannot beat the env layer, so the modal does not offer an edit it cannot make effective.
• Editable keys validate with the exact rules the config loader applies (booleans; worktree.mode ∈ off/isolate; timeouts as positive milliseconds; the TCP port as an integer 1–65535; byte budgets and sync counts as positive whole numbers; the executable as a non-empty string). Invalid input is rejected inside the modal and never reaches disk.
• A write-target selector chooses where staged edits land: the project .pi/cgc.json (default) or the global agent-directory cgc.json (PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR-aware). Saves merge only the edited nested keys into the chosen file — unknown sections and keys are preserved verbatim, a malformed target file is refused untouched, and writes are atomic (temp file + rename).
• Saved changes apply at the next session start — the running session keeps its loaded behavior; the modal and the completion notice say so explicitly.

The modal degrades fail-open: overlay ctx.ui.custom → non-overlay ctx.ui.custom → the documented dialog flow → the read-only table; every UI or filesystem failure is a bounded notice, never a crashed or blocked session.

Full Configuration Reference

{
    "cgc": {
        "executable": "cgc",
        "timeoutMs": 30000,
        "maintenanceTimeoutMs": 600000,
        "versionProbeTimeoutMs": 10000,
        "api": {
            "enabled": true,
            "port": 8000
        }
    },
    "lifecycle": {
        "autoCreate": false,
        "syncOnStart": true
    },
    "worktree": {
        "mode": "off"
    },
    "proactive": {
        "sessionNote": true,
        "driftSteers": false,
        "resultAnnotations": false
    },
    "freshness": {
        "watch": "off",
        "watcherLivenessMs": 15000,
        "autoSync": true,
        "maxSyncsPerSession": 2
    },
    "output": {
        "maxBytes": 16384,
        "spillToTemp": true,
        "redactSecrets": true,
        "gcf": false
    },
    "tools": {
        "cliGap": {
            "enabled": true
        }
    },
    "guidance": {
        "routingSkill": true
    }
}

Section	Key	Default	What it controls
cgc	executable	"cgc"	The CGC binary (name or absolute path)
cgc	timeoutMs / versionProbeTimeoutMs	30000 / 10000	Per-command and version-probe budgets (probes, /cgc doctor, /cgc report)
cgc	maintenanceTimeoutMs	600000	Budget for background maintenance runs (/cgc index, /cgc sync)
cgc	api.enabled / api.port	true / 8000	Use the CGC HTTP API for the indexedness check (falls back to cgc list). Refer to the How the Status Check Works section
lifecycle	autoCreate	false	Index a workspace automatically when none exists (consent gate)
lifecycle	syncOnStart	true	Sync drift detected at session start
worktree	mode	"off"	"isolate" maps each git worktree to its own CGC context
proactive	sessionNote / driftSteers / resultAnnotations	true / false / false	Proactive surfaces: the one-shot session note, drift steering, tool-result annotations
freshness	watch / watcherLivenessMs / autoSync / maxSyncsPerSession	"off" / 15000 / true / 2	Tri-state watcher mode (off / on / auto — auto spawns only on server backends on already-indexed workspaces; true/false map to on/off), its liveness-verification budget, background syncing, and the per-session sync bound
freshness.watcherLivenessMs	15000	CGC_FRESHNESS_WATCHER_LIVENESS_MS	Liveness-verification budget for the managed watcher: the workspace reports fresh only after the watcher survives this window
output	maxBytes / spillToTemp / redactSecrets / gcf	16384 / true / true / false	Output budget, spill-to-disk, secret redaction, graph-context-format output
tools	cliGap.enabled	true	Registers the three CLI-gap tools (cgc_bundle_export, cgc_context, cgc_doctor)
guidance	routingSkill	true	Offers the cgc-routing skill to the agent (opt out with false)

How the Status Check Works

The extension answers "is this workspace indexed?" on every session start and in /cgc status. How it answers depends on how CGC stores the index for your backend:

• Bundled backend (Kùzu): CGC keeps the index in a .codegraphcontext/ directory inside the workspace — its presence is a fast, definitive "indexed" signal.
• Server backends (Neo4j, FalkorDB): the graph lives on the server, so there is no local directory to check — these are the marker-less backends. Here the extension asks CGC itself, in this order:
  1. The CGC HTTP API (cgc.api.enabled, default on): a one-shot Cypher lookup against a loopback-only API — the extension spawns one on demand if none is running. Fastest; uses cgc.api.port.
  2. The cgc list CLI probe: lists the registered repositories and matches the workspace path. Slower (a fresh CLI process), identical answer.

Both are read-only, bounded, and fail-open: if neither can answer, the extension says so honestly instead of guessing. The API is optional — without it (or with cgc.api.enabled: false) the CLI probe decides; the only cost is time.

Environment Variables

Every behavior has an environment override (they take precedence over config files). Booleans accept 1/true/yes/on and 0/false/no/off.

Variable	Overrides
CGC_EXECUTABLE	cgc.executable
CGC_TIMEOUT_MS / CGC_MAINTENANCE_TIMEOUT_MS / CGC_VERSION_PROBE_TIMEOUT_MS	cgc time budgets
CGC_API_ENABLED / CGC_API_PORT	cgc.api.*
CGC_LIFECYCLE_AUTO_CREATE / CGC_LIFECYCLE_SYNC_ON_START	lifecycle.*
CGC_WORKTREE_MODE	worktree.mode
CGC_FRESHNESS_WATCH / CGC_FRESHNESS_AUTO_SYNC / CGC_FRESHNESS_MAX_SYNCS_PER_SESSION	freshness.*
CGC_GUIDANCE_ENABLED / CGC_GUIDANCE_ALWAYS_ON / CGC_GUIDANCE_ROUTING_SKILL / CGC_GUIDANCE_GUIDELINES	guidance.* and the guideline text itself
CGC_TOOLS_CLI_GAP_ENABLED	tools.cliGap.enabled
CGC_ALLOWED_ROOTS	Path sandbox for CGC operations (absolute roots)
CGC_COMMAND_NAME / CGC_NAMESPACE	The /cgc command name and namespace

Example for a headless CI run:

export CGC_LIFECYCLE_AUTO_CREATE=true
export CGC_FRESHNESS_WATCH=false
export CGC_ALLOWED_ROOTS="$PWD"

Troubleshooting

• "unavailable" notice at session start — the cgc binary was not found. Check PATH, set CGC_EXECUTABLE, or configure cgc.executable in a config file.
• "unindexed" notice — enable lifecycle.autoCreate (or CGC_LIFECYCLE_AUTO_CREATE) or run /cgc index.
• Graph answers look stale — run /cgc sync, or enable freshness.watch.
• Nothing worktree-related happens — worktree contexts are off by default; set worktree.mode: "isolate" to opt in.
• CLI errors — see the CGC troubleshooting guide, then /cgc doctor.

Development

bun install
bun test          # ~935 tests across 32 files
bunx tsc --noEmit # type check

The extension is fully covered by the per-capability specs under openspec/specs/ and the archived change history under openspec/changes/archive/.