A few things which I find interesting:
- The system prompt is editable. Drop a `system . md` in `~/.pi/agent` and you fully replace Pi's system prompt. I didn't find this in any other coding agents.
- Sessions are trees, not lines. `/tree` lets you fork from any earlier message. When the agent goes the wrong direction 10 messages ago, you don't restart you /fork.
- Its very minimal only four tools: read, write, edit, bash. No grep tool, no find tool, no git tool. Bash covers it. Mario's argument is that models are already RL-trained on bash, so dedicated tools are added noise.
- No sub-agents built in. This was the part I wrestled with most because my Claude Code workflow leans heavily on `.claude/agents/`, but had fun when I used pi only to create extension for my workflow.
- The agent can write its own extensions. I asked it to build a status bar widget showing my git branch + uncommitted count. It read its own extension docs, wrote the TypeScript, and hot-reload done. Genuinely impressive.
If you want something that works on day one, you can use other coding agents as they are polished products. If you are a minimalist or want to actually own your context and workflow, Pi is ideal for you.
The thing keeping me from switching fully is Anthropic's recent policy means logging into Pi with a Claude Pro account doesn't draw from your subscription's included usage , it bills as extra per-token usage on top.
If you're on a ChatGPT subscription, Copilot, OpenRouter, or running Ollama locally it is too good not to try. Curious if anyone here has been running Pi would love to hear experience.
If anyone wants to see or read my full exploration I have added links for text and video version in comments
[link] [comments]