Use this skill when the user wants to operate Pi or build on top of Pi. Pi is a minimal terminal coding harness extended through TypeScript extensions, skills, prompt templates, themes, packages, custom models/providers, SDK integrations, RPC mode, JSON event streams, and TUI components.
Pick the reference before answering or coding:
| User intent | Read |
|---|---|
| Install, authenticate, first run | references/quickstart.md |
| Day-to-day CLI usage, commands, modes, flags | references/usage.md |
| Provider auth, API keys, cloud provider setup | references/providers.md |
| Custom model entries, local models, proxies | references/models.md |
| Extension development, custom tools, events, commands | references/extensions.md |
| Custom provider implementation, OAuth, custom streaming | references/custom-provider.md |
| Embed Pi in Node/TypeScript | references/sdk.md |
| Integrate from another process/language | references/rpc.md |
| Consume JSONL event output | references/json.md |
| Build terminal UI components | references/tui.md |
| Package extensions/skills/prompts/themes | references/packages.md |
| Delegate to subagents, chains, parallel runs, orchestration | references/pi-subagents.md |
| Connect MCP servers, MCP tool discovery/config | references/pi-mcp-adapter.md |
| Interactive interview forms, structured user input | references/pi-interview.md |
| Web search, URL/PDF/repo fetching, video understanding | references/pi-web-access.md |
| Author Pi skills | references/skills.md |
| Prompt templates or themes | references/prompt-templates.md, references/themes.md |
| Sessions, branching, compaction, parsing JSONL | references/sessions.md, references/compaction.md, references/session-format.md |
| Security, sandboxing, trust | references/security.md, references/containerization.md |
| Keyboard or terminal issues | references/keybindings.md, references/terminal-setup.md, references/tmux.md, references/windows.md, references/termux.md, references/shell-aliases.md |
| Working on Pi itself | references/development.md |
Prefer the SDK for Node/TypeScript apps that need type safety, direct state access, in-process custom tools/extensions, or custom resource loading. Use createAgentSession() for a single stable session; use createAgentSessionRuntime() when the app must replace sessions through new/resume/fork/clone/import flows.
Prefer RPC mode when the client is not Node.js, needs process isolation, or wants a language-agnostic JSONL protocol. Start with pi --mode rpc --no-session for stateless subprocess integration, then add session flags when persistence matters.
Prefer JSON mode for one-shot command-line pipelines that only need streamed events, not bidirectional control: pi --mode json "prompt".
Use extensions for Pi-native behavior: custom tools, command handlers, event hooks, provider registration, custom compaction, path protection, project trust policy, UI prompts, widgets, and TUI components.
Use packages when sharing or installing reusable extensions, skills, prompt templates, or themes across machines or projects.
Pi is local and not sandboxed by default. Treat extensions, packages, skills, shell commands, and project-local .pi resources as code with the permissions of the Pi process. For untrusted repos or unattended automation, isolate with Docker, OpenShell, Gondolin, a VM, or a remote sandbox.
Do not store secrets in project files. Prefer env vars, ~/.pi/agent/auth.json, OAuth via /login, or command-backed secret lookups in models.json/provider config.
npm install -g --ignore-scripts @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent
pi
pi -p "Summarize this codebase"
pi --mode json "List files"
pi --mode rpc --no-session
pi --provider anthropic --model claude-sonnet-4-5
pi --tools read,grep,find,ls -p "Review this repository"
These references summarize the Pi documentation at https://pi.dev/docs/latest and each docs page found under it as of this skill version, plus the package pages for pi-subagents, pi-mcp-adapter, pi-interview, and pi-web-access at https://pi.dev/packages/. When exact API behavior matters, prefer the cited reference page and inspect installed TypeScript definitions under node_modules/@earendil-works/pi-coding-agent/dist/ and node_modules/@earendil-works/pi-ai/dist/.