pi-skill-model-effort

A Pi package extension that adds runtime support for optional skill frontmatter keys:

• model — temporarily switch to a specific model while the skill runs.
• effort — temporarily set Pi's thinking level while the skill runs.
• thinking — Pi-native synonym for effort.

effort and thinking are mutually exclusive. If both are present, the extension leaves the thinking level unchanged and shows a warning.

Install

Install from npm:

pi install npm:pi-skill-model-effort

For one-off testing from npm:

pi -e npm:pi-skill-model-effort

Skill frontmatter

---
name: code-review
description: Review code for correctness and maintainability.
model: anthropic/claude-sonnet-4-5
effort: high
---

Or use Pi's native term:

thinking: xhigh

Supported thinking values: off, minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh. max is accepted as an alias for xhigh for Claude Code compatibility.

model: inherit is treated the same as omitting model.

Behavior

• The model and thinking overrides are temporary and restored at the end of the user prompt/agent run.
• Explicit /skill:name invocations are applied as soon as Pi receives the raw slash command, before the first model call for that prompt.
• Automatically selected skills are applied after Pi reads that skill's SKILL.md, so the next LLM turn in the same agent run uses the override. The initial model turn that decides to load the skill still uses the current session model/thinking.
• Model references may be provider/model-id or an unqualified model id/name if it uniquely matches one configured model.

Package structure

This repository is a Pi package. package.json declares:

{
  "keywords": ["pi-package"],
  "pi": {
    "extensions": ["./extensions/skill-model-effort.ts"]
  }
}

Pi loads the TypeScript extension directly via its extension runtime.