pi-powerline

Powerline-style UI extensions for pi coding agent (custom editor, breadcrumb, footer, header)

Packages

Package details

extension

Install pi-powerline from npm and Pi will load the resources declared by the package manifest.

npm repohome report
$ pi install npm:pi-powerline
Package
pi-powerline
Version
0.11.1
Published
Oct 2, 2026
Downloads
474/mo · 64/wk
Author
johnnywu
License
MIT
Types
extension
Size
113.5 KB
Dependencies
0 dependencies · 3 peers
Pi manifest JSON
{
  "image": "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jwu/pi-powerline/refs/heads/main/assets/pi-powerline.png",
  "extensions": [
    "./extensions"
  ]
}

Security note

Pi packages can execute code and influence agent behavior. Review the source before installing third-party packages.

README

pi-powerline

Powerline-style UI extensions for pi: custom editor, breadcrumb, footer, and header.

Requires pi 0.84.0 or newer and Node.js 22.19.0 or newer.

Highly inspired by pi-powerline-footer.

screenshot

Install

pi install npm:pi-powerline

Settings

Settings are read from both global and project files. Project settings override global settings.

Location Scope
~/.pi/agent/settings.json Global
.pi/settings.json Current project 
// .pi/settings.json
{
  "powerline": true,
  "breadcrumb": "inner",
  "footer": true,
  "footer-mcp": true,
  "header": true,
  "header-info": true
}
Setting Values Default Effect
powerline true / false true Master switch for all pi-powerline UI extensions
breadcrumb "hide" / "top" / "inner" "inner" Breadcrumb placement
footer true / false true Enable custom footer
footer-mcp true / false true Fuse the pi-mcp status into the footer stats line
header true / false true Enable custom gradient-logo header
header-info true / false true Show header diagnostic info on startup/reload

Nerd Font icons

pi-powerline uses Nerd Font icons when it can infer that the terminal supports them.

Detection order:

  1. PI_NERD_FONTS=1 forces icons on
  2. PI_NERD_FONTS=0 forces icons off
  3. GHOSTTY_RESOURCES_DIR enables icons for Ghostty
  4. TERM_PROGRAM or TERM containing iterm, wezterm, kitty, ghostty, or alacritty enables icons
  5. Otherwise icons are disabled and plain text fallbacks are used

For SSH or terminals that cannot be detected reliably, set it explicitly:

export PI_NERD_FONTS=1

Footer MCP status

The mcp segment sits on the right of the stats line, left of the thinking level:

 ⎇ main  50.0%/200k (auto) ↑1.2k ↓3.4k   →   MCP 3/3 med

Two sources feed it, in this order:

  1. An extension status published under the mcp key, for example by pi-mcp-adapter with mcpFooterStatus: "compact".
  2. The built-in MCP extension, which publishes no footer status. pi-powerline then counts the mcp__* namespaces among the registered tools against the enabled entries of ~/.pi/agent/mcp.json and <project>/.pi/mcp.json. The segment stays empty until at least one server has registered its tools.

Either way MCP 3/3 counts servers that registered tools, not servers whose backing service answers: a Blender MCP server reports connected while the Blender add-on is not running.

Set footer-mcp to false to keep the MCP status on its own footer line. Other extension statuses (such as filechanges) always stay on that line.

Header info

header-info adds diagnostic sections under the header:

  • Context — loaded system prompt context files, such as AGENTS.md, AGENTS.override.md, and .pi/APPEND_SYSTEM.md
  • Skills — loaded skills
  • Prompts — loaded prompt commands
  • Extensions — loaded extension packages or paths

It is only rendered for startup and reload, never for new sessions. It also requires Pi's quietStartup setting to be true:

{
  "quietStartup": true,
  "header-info": true
}

Commands

Command Effect
/powerline Toggle all extensions on/off
/powerline info Show current settings
/powerline breadcrumb:top|inner|hide Set breadcrumb mode
/powerline footer:on|off Toggle footer
/powerline footer-mcp:on|off Toggle MCP status on the stats line
/powerline header:on|off Toggle header
/powerline header-info:on|off Toggle header diagnostic info

License

MIT