pi-side-chat

Fork the current conversation into a side chat while the main agent keeps working.

pi install npm:pi-side-chat

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/3a359f47-c706-46b9-8b16-d05f430d402c

You're in the middle of a longer task and want to ask something small without derailing the main thread — check an API detail, sanity-check an approach, search something, or peek at what the main agent is doing. Open the overlay, ask, close it. Main thread never gets interrupted.

Quick Start

Open side chat with Alt+/ or /side. Ask a question and press Enter.

Press Esc to close it. Reopen with Alt+/ to continue where you left off.

Toggle focus — Alt+/ switches between the side chat and main editor without closing the overlay.

Toggle mode — Ctrl+T switches between read-only and edit mode.

Toggle fullscreen — Alt+Shift+M expands the open side chat to the terminal bounds. Press it again to restore the compact overlay. The conversation, draft, focus, and scroll position remain in place.

Start fresh — Alt+R re-forks from the latest main context. Alt+N starts a blank conversation.

Features

Forks the conversation — Starts with a copy of the current branch context. All extension tools (web_search, fetch_content, etc.) are available. Does not write back to the main conversation history.

Persists across close/reopen — Closing preserves the conversation. Reopening restores it. Use Alt+R or Alt+N to explicitly start fresh.

Read-only by default — Safe for quick questions and code reading. Toggle to edit mode when you need write access.

Mode	Tools
Read-only	read, grep, find, ls
Edit	read, bash, edit, write (with overlap warnings)

File overlap warnings — If the side chat tries to modify a file the main agent has touched, it asks before proceeding.

Peek at the main agent — The peek_main tool reads recent activity from the main session.

What is the main agent doing right now?
What changed since I opened this side chat?

Non-capturing overlay — Leave it visible and switch focus back to the main editor. Compact mode opens at the top of the screen so the main editor stays visible underneath. Fullscreen mode uses the available terminal width and height for long answers and scrollback.

Controls

Key	Action
Alt+/	Open side chat / toggle focus
Alt+Shift+M	Toggle compact / fullscreen view
Enter	Send message
Esc	Interrupt streaming, or close when idle
Alt+R	Re-fork from latest main context
Alt+N	Start empty conversation
Ctrl+T	Toggle read-only / edit mode
PgUp / Shift+↑	Scroll up
PgDn / Shift+↓	Scroll down

Command Reference

/side

Opens the side chat overlay.

peek_main

Available to the side agent only.

Param	Type	Description
lines	integer	Max items to inspect (default: 20, max: 50)
since_fork	boolean	Only show activity after the side chat was opened

Configuration

Create pi-side-chat.json in your Pi agent directory (~/.pi/agent/pi-side-chat.json, or $PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR/pi-side-chat.json when set) to change the shortcuts:

{
  "shortcut": "alt+/",
  "fullscreenShortcut": "alt+shift+m"
}

The extension reads only this agent-directory file. If you previously used a config.json next to the extension module, move its contents here and rename it to pi-side-chat.json. PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR determines the agent directory when set.

How It Works

The extension clones the current session context, creates a separate agent instance with all extension-registered tools, and renders it in a TUI overlay. Compact and fullscreen modes resize that same component and agent in place. Closing saves the conversation in memory so reopening restores it.

Main-agent tool execution events are tracked to maintain a set of written file paths. In edit mode, write-capable tools are wrapped to warn before touching those paths.

peek_main reads the current session branch on demand and returns a compact summary.

Limitations

• One side chat at a time
• Won't open on top of another visible overlay
• Does not merge messages back into the main thread
• Bash overlap detection is heuristic — catches common write patterns, not all
• peek_main is on-demand, not live