StickyBar

Input bar extension for pi coding agent.

Preview

Features

• Fixed editor - prompt is always visible
• Two configurable status rows with model, git state and more, check table below
• Last-prompt preview under the input prompt line
• Themed working vibes: generated realtime based on your input or loaded from a local file, with optional rainbow animation and character-by-character printing.

Installation

pi install npm:pi-stickybar

Restart pi after installation or call /reload.

Configuration

The extension has opiniated defaults, but it also configurable via settings.json

Put settings under a single stickybar object. Pi reads global settings first, then project settings, so .pi/settings.json overrides ~/.pi/agent/settings.json.

Full configuration example:

{
  "stickybar": {
    "fixedEditor": true,
    "mouseScroll": true,
    "showLastPrompt": true,

    "top": [
      "git",
      "context_pct",
      "token_in",
      "token_out",
      "cost",
      "time_spent"
    ],

    "bottom": [
      "model",
      "thinking",
      "path",
      "extension_statuses"
    ],

    "options": {
      "path": { "mode": "basename", "maxLength": 32 },
      "git": {
        "polling": "full",
        "showBranch": true,
        "showStaged": true,
        "showUnstaged": true,
        "showUntracked": true
      },
      "time": { "format": "24h", "showSeconds": false }
    },

    "vibe": {
      "theme": "evil corporation",
      "mode": "generate",
      "model": "openai-codex/gpt-5.4-mini",
      "rainbow": true,
      "printing": true,
      "fallback": "Working",
      "refreshInterval": 30,
      "prompt": "Generate a {theme} loading message for: {task}. {exclude}",
      "maxLength": 65,
      "lookback": 30
    },

    "chatNavigation": {
      "previousKey": "ctrl+alt+up",
      "nextKey": "ctrl+alt+down"
    }
  }
}

Status items

top and bottom are ordered arrays. An item can appear only once, and unknown IDs are ignored.

Item	Description	Example
model	Current model in use	gpt-5.4-mini
thinking	Reasoning/thinking level	medium
path	Current file path (see options)	src/index.ts
git	Git branch + working-tree state	main ⇡3 ✗2 ?1
context_pct	Context window usage percentage	45%
context_total	Total context tokens used	12,450 tok
token_in	Input tokens for current turn	3,200
token_out	Output tokens for current turn	840
token_total	Total tokens (in + out)	4,040
cost	Estimated cost of current session	$0.012
time_spent	Elapsed time for current turn	3s
time	Current clock time	14:35
session	Session identifier or name	sess-abc123
hostname	Machine hostname	my-laptop
cache_read	Cache read hits	128
cache_write	Cache write hits	35
extension_statuses	All published extension statuses	ci: passing · deploy: ready

Path options

Configure how file paths are displayed via options.path:

Option	Values	Description
mode	basename, abbreviated, full	How the path is rendered. basename shows only the filename (index.ts). abbreviated keeps the full path but truncates from the start with … when it exceeds maxLength. full always shows the complete absolute path.
maxLength	number (default: 32)	Maximum length for abbreviated mode. Longer paths are truncated from the beginning and prefixed with ….

Git polling options

Configure git status detail via options.git:

Option	Values	Description
polling	full, branch, off	How much git info to gather. full polls for branch name plus staged, unstaged, and untracked counts. branch shows only the current branch name without scanning working-tree changes. off skips local polling entirely and relies on whatever branch info pi provides.
showBranch	boolean (default: true)	Include the branch name in the segment.
showStaged	boolean (default: true)	Show the count of staged changes (⇡).
showUnstaged	boolean (default: true)	Show the count of unstaged changes (✗).
showUntracked	boolean (default: true)	Show the count of untracked files (?).

Custom status items

Use custom:<id> in a row and declare the matching item in customItems:

{
  "stickybar": {
    "top": ["model", "path", "custom:ci", "git"],
    "bottom": ["context_pct", "extension_statuses"],
    "customItems": [
      {
        "id": "ci",
        "statusKey": "ci-status",
        "prefix": "CI",
        "hideWhenMissing": true,
        "excludeFromExtensionStatuses": true
      }
    ]
  }
}

Extensions publish a value with:

ctx.ui.setStatus("ci-status", "passing");

Chat navigation (fixed editor only)

When fixedEditor is on, chatNavigation.previousKey/nextKey jump the scrollable transcript to the previous/next user prompt (a single agent turn can render several assistant/tool-call components in a row, so only user prompts are used as jump targets - assistant replies are skipped). Defaults are ctrl+alt+up / ctrl+alt+down, which avoid Pi's existing ctrl+o and ctrl+p bindings. Once there's no earlier/later prompt left, the shortcut lands on the very start/end of the thread instead of doing nothing.

Some terminals and IDE-embedded terminals (e.g. IntelliJ's terminal tool window) reserve modified arrow keys for their own scrollback or do not forward them to Pi. If a shortcut appears to "just scroll" instead of jumping to a message, override it with another key combination in chatNavigation.

If the defaults collide with something in your setup, override them:

{
  "stickybar": {
    "chatNavigation": {
      "previousKey": "ctrl+alt+t",
      "nextKey": "ctrl+alt+y"
    }
  }
}

Avoid ctrl+[ (identical to plain Escape on every ANSI terminal - Pi uses Escape to cancel/close overlays) and ctrl+] (already bound by Pi's editor to "jump forward to character"). Set a key to null or "" to disable it entirely.

Working vibes

Manage vibes from pi with /stickybar vibe:

/stickybar                    Show current status
/stickybar vibe               Show vibe status
/stickybar vibe pirate        Enable a theme
/stickybar vibe off           Disable vibes
/stickybar vibe rainbow on    Enable rainbow animation
/stickybar vibe printing off  Disable character-by-character printing
/stickybar vibe mode file     Use ~/.pi/agent/vibes/<theme>.txt
/stickybar vibe model provider/model
/stickybar vibe generate evil cat corporation 100

generate mode requests a short message from the configured model while Pi is working. file mode rotates through messages in ~/.pi/agent/vibes/<theme>.txt and does not make a model request. Refreshed messages print character by character by default; set vibe.printing to false or run /stickybar vibe printing off to show them immediately.

In generate mode, the last lookback messages (default 30) are fed back to the model as an exclusion list to reduce repeats, and are persisted per-theme to ~/.pi/agent/vibes/<theme>.history.json so the exclusion list survives across sessions. Loading/saving this history is fire-and-forget and never blocks the UI. Set lookback to 0 to disable both the exclusion list and persistence.

This project is a rework of pi-powerline-footer with simplified approach to customization and limited feature list.