pi-effort

Extension for pi — a provider-agnostic terminal coding agent by Mario Zechner.

Pi extension for controlling thinking/effort with model-adaptive min/max aliases.

Goal

Provide a /effort command that adapts to the current model:

• min — set the lowest reasoning level for this model
• max — set the highest reasoning level for this model
• Explicit levels for fine-grained control
• Persistent defaults for future sessions

Commands

/effort            show current effort and available levels
/effort min        set minimum effort for this model
/effort max        set maximum effort for this model
/effort <level>    set explicit level (off|minimal|low|medium|high|xhigh)
/effort options    show available levels for this model
/effort help       show command help
/effort default min|max|<level>
/effort default clear

How min/max adapt per model

Model type	min	max	Available levels
Non-reasoning	—	—	(thinking unavailable)
Reasoning (standard)	minimal	high	minimal, low, medium, high
Reasoning (xhigh-capable)	minimal	xhigh	minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh

xhigh-capable models are determined by pi-ai's supportsXhigh(). Run /effort options to see what the current model supports.

Defaults

• /effort default max — writes the resolved level (e.g., xhigh) to ~/.pi/agent/settings.json. Future sessions pick it up automatically via Pi core.
• /effort default clear — removes the persisted default.

Backward compat

/effort off disables thinking. On reasoning models, /effort min is the lowest enabled reasoning level (minimal).

Keyboard shortcut

Ctrl+Shift+E — cycle through reasoning effort levels for the current model (skips off; use /effort off if you want to disable thinking).

CLI flag

pi --effort max       # start with maximum effort
pi --effort min       # start with minimum effort
pi --effort high      # start with explicit level
pi --effort off       # start with thinking disabled

The flag resolves min/max against the initial model and applies the level on session start.

Model switching

When you switch models (via /model or model selector), Pi clamps effort to the new model's capabilities and pi-effort keeps the UI honest:

1. Syncs completions to the newly selected model
2. Lets Pi's built-in footer show the effective effort immediately
3. Updates the current-turn working label (for example, Working (high effort)...)

Install

Install the published package from npm:

pi install npm:pi-effort

Verify what Pi is loading:

pi list
npm list -g --depth=0 pi-effort

The durable Pi setting is the package entry in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json:

{
  "packages": [
    "npm:pi-effort"
  ]
}

Pi then resolves that package through the configured package manager. On a Homebrew macOS setup, the installed package typically lives under:

/opt/homebrew/lib/node_modules/pi-effort

The package manifest tells Pi which extension file to load:

{
  "pi": {
    "extensions": ["./index.ts"]
  }
}

How this relates to pi-mono

pi-effort is independent from the Pi base repository.

~/pi-mono is the Pi engine/runtime checkout. It provides the pi CLI and loads packages listed in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json.

~/Documents/projects/pi-effort is the source repository for this extension. Pi does not load this checkout when the settings entry is npm:pi-effort; it loads the installed npm copy instead.

The normal runtime chain is:

pi command
  -> Pi runtime from ~/pi-mono or another Pi installation
  -> ~/.pi/agent/settings.json
  -> "npm:pi-effort"
  -> installed npm package
  -> index.ts from this package

That separation is intentional: Pi core can be updated independently from this extension, and this extension can be developed, versioned, and published as its own npm package.

Local development

For a one-off local test from this checkout:

npm install
pi -e ./index.ts

For a longer local-path development install:

pi remove npm:pi-effort
pi install "$(pwd)"

After publishing a new version, switch back to the npm package:

npm publish
pi remove "$(pwd)"
pi install npm:pi-effort

Verification

npm run check
npm test
npm pack --dry-run

Repo structure

index.ts        Pi extension entrypoint (hooks, commands, shortcuts)
effort.ts       Parsing, resolution, settings, and model capability logic
package.json    Package metadata and Pi manifest
tsconfig.json   TypeScript configuration

License

Apache-2.0