5 ms·

Maybe related to this minimalism, Pi doesn't come with most of the tools an LLM needs to function efficiently or effectively. I get that a blank slate is the pa

by mft_ 3mo ago

Maybe related to this minimalism, Pi doesn't come with most of the tools an LLM needs to function efficiently or effectively. I get that a blank slate is the paradigm, and you can add whatever you want, but it's too blank IMO.

azuanrb 3mo ago
[dead]
arcanemachiner 3mo ago
I have a functional Pi config, mostly self-made (it has everything I want, incl. subagents, web search, a /btw command, and other misc. addons), and my system prompt is ~3k.
- mft_ 3mo ago
  Would you mind sharing?
- drob518 3mo ago
  Exactly. It’s minimal to start but the sky is the limit at the other end. I love the plugability of Pi.
bel8 3mo ago
It's easy to add using plugins. What do you miss? I ask because I do some heavy work with pi + GLM 5.2 (using opencode Go subscription) and my workflow is plan -> implement.
- mft_ 3mo ago
  > It's easy to add using plugins. Sure, but you have to add almost everything, no? It deliberately only comes with read, write, edit, and bash. My point wasn't that you can't add stuff, but that I'd just rather use an harness that's a bit more full featured from the start. (Pi is a bit like old 3D printing where fettling the printer to work is a central part of the hobby. I'd rather just buy a Prusa.)
  - agentdev001 3mo ago
    I'd like to understand what features you're referring to that are missing from base-install Pi CLI.
    - mft_ 3mo ago
      The main ones missed immediately were web access/search. Then the to-do list features (it was a nice surprise to try OpenCode and see this working immediately.). There were a couple of other niggles but it was a few months ago. Also, this may not be common, but it seemed to struggle to edit effectively (driven by Qwen 3.6 35b/27b) and often rewrote whole files instead.
      - agentdev001 3mo ago
        Gotcha, I feel like model or provider-specific installs would be a nice QoL improvement in that case. Presumably, part of this issue (beyond the ethos of minimalism) is the aim of shipping shipping an agnostic toolset. For myself, im openai-first, and of course that pushes me to favor their hosted tools (in this case web search), and their native CPT/RL'd stuff (Ie apply-patch). Though, imo, the fact that pi maintains its "we only include the bare minimum!" statement is part of the draw for me. Especially considering that im in an enterprise env; being able to internally share custom implementations of out-of-the-box Codex/CC stuff is really nice. I do wonder how they'd go about shipping a default web search tool. Big problem there is the lethal trifecta. Shipping something that arbitrarily allows untrusted content to be retrieved non-deterministically I'm sure is a long conversation on Pi's end. Pushing it off to the user to decide is easy.
    - drob518 3mo ago
      I use Pi and love it, but the base install is extremely minimal (a handful of tools, no subagents, etc.). That’s on purpose. Sure, you can add more with packages, but that’s not the base install.
    - AshamedBadger56 3mo ago
      I know it's against the ethos of Pi, but I think a lot of people would consider a handful of things like a memory system, web search, subagents, and looping to be a basic/base thing they would add to every agent harness.
- attheballot 3mo ago
  You know, seeing a total of 3 replies on this topic, I think the lesson here is to, from now on, with comments like this, to clearly state "Pi has *ALL* the tools, can you name one it does not".
rurban 3mo ago
Oh-my-pi has more tools than claude and opencode, and uses them much more efficiently. my favorites are /collab and the gortex mcp
- EspadaV9 3mo ago
  I tried using omp, and really like the interface, but I found it used tokens much much quicker than the Claude cli. Some simple tasks would use all the session tokens in less than an hour, as where I could get easily get 3-4 hours with Claude. Both set to use opus 4.8 auto effort. I tried tweaking the models for agents down to haiku and sonnet in omp, but didn't notice any real difference in the speed tokens were being used.
  - RamblingCTO 3mo ago
    if the website is any indication, omp is just vibe coded AI slop as well. pi is awesome but it looks like omp is a step down including unnecessary stuff no one needs. it's kinda the opposite of pi
    - Systemerror7A69 3mo ago
      I've heard amazing things about pi and it's effectivenes but when I tried installing it I quickly found out it doesn't respect XDG_BASE_DIRECTORY at all, you need to set some environment variables and the author rejected both a proposal as "going full gpt", seemingly not even knowing about XDG_BASE_DIRECTORY, and even rejected a PR. I've heard really good things but that being my first experience with pi didn't fill me with confidence about it's code quality either. For now I stay with OpenCode I think - I was using zed editor and agent for the longest time anyway and think I will go back to that. CLI tools for me seem a bit too disconnected from the code.
      - RamblingCTO 3mo ago
        Interesting! I wouldn't know, because I'm on mac. I love that it's very basic and I can basically do plug and play with the stuff I need. The load, complexity and system prompt overhang is quite minimal. But in the end, opencode is also fine I guess. I don't need to fiddle around with it too much and just need it to work. So if you're happy, why switch ;) I actually use zed as an editor w/o agents lol
ejpir 3mo ago
what tools are you talking about? Pi has ALL tools the LLM needs to function efficiently and effectively for coding tasks. It can read,write,edit files and can use any bash tool to search files, execute tests and so on. Every time I read this comments I have the feeling you are talking about mcp or sub agents, otherwise this makes no sense at all.
- cornedor 3mo ago
  That will increase the amount of initial tokens used, because the tools have to be described somewhere. Maybe not as much as Claude Code, but it could get more if you just randomly keep adding tools.
pohl 3mo ago
It starts lean, yeah. Did you know you can prompt it to add the capability you feel you’re missing?

by mft_ 3mo ago

azuanrb 3mo ago

[dead]

arcanemachiner 3mo ago

I have a functional Pi config, mostly self-made (it has everything I want, incl. subagents, web search, a /btw command, and other misc. addons), and my system prompt is ~3k.

mft_ 3mo ago
Would you mind sharing?
drob518 3mo ago
Exactly. It’s minimal to start but the sky is the limit at the other end. I love the plugability of Pi.

bel8 3mo ago

It's easy to add using plugins. What do you miss? I ask because I do some heavy work with pi + GLM 5.2 (using opencode Go subscription) and my workflow is plan -> implement.

mft_ 3mo ago
> It's easy to add using plugins. Sure, but you have to add almost everything, no? It deliberately only comes with read, write, edit, and bash. My point wasn't that you can't add stuff, but that I'd just rather use an harness that's a bit more full featured from the start. (Pi is a bit like old 3D printing where fettling the printer to work is a central part of the hobby. I'd rather just buy a Prusa.)
- agentdev001 3mo ago
  I'd like to understand what features you're referring to that are missing from base-install Pi CLI.
  - mft_ 3mo ago
    The main ones missed immediately were web access/search. Then the to-do list features (it was a nice surprise to try OpenCode and see this working immediately.). There were a couple of other niggles but it was a few months ago. Also, this may not be common, but it seemed to struggle to edit effectively (driven by Qwen 3.6 35b/27b) and often rewrote whole files instead.
    - agentdev001 3mo ago
      Gotcha, I feel like model or provider-specific installs would be a nice QoL improvement in that case. Presumably, part of this issue (beyond the ethos of minimalism) is the aim of shipping shipping an agnostic toolset. For myself, im openai-first, and of course that pushes me to favor their hosted tools (in this case web search), and their native CPT/RL'd stuff (Ie apply-patch). Though, imo, the fact that pi maintains its "we only include the bare minimum!" statement is part of the draw for me. Especially considering that im in an enterprise env; being able to internally share custom implementations of out-of-the-box Codex/CC stuff is really nice. I do wonder how they'd go about shipping a default web search tool. Big problem there is the lethal trifecta. Shipping something that arbitrarily allows untrusted content to be retrieved non-deterministically I'm sure is a long conversation on Pi's end. Pushing it off to the user to decide is easy.
  - drob518 3mo ago
    I use Pi and love it, but the base install is extremely minimal (a handful of tools, no subagents, etc.). That’s on purpose. Sure, you can add more with packages, but that’s not the base install.
  - AshamedBadger56 3mo ago
    I know it's against the ethos of Pi, but I think a lot of people would consider a handful of things like a memory system, web search, subagents, and looping to be a basic/base thing they would add to every agent harness.
attheballot 3mo ago
You know, seeing a total of 3 replies on this topic, I think the lesson here is to, from now on, with comments like this, to clearly state "Pi has *ALL* the tools, can you name one it does not".

rurban 3mo ago

Oh-my-pi has more tools than claude and opencode, and uses them much more efficiently. my favorites are /collab and the gortex mcp

EspadaV9 3mo ago
I tried using omp, and really like the interface, but I found it used tokens much much quicker than the Claude cli. Some simple tasks would use all the session tokens in less than an hour, as where I could get easily get 3-4 hours with Claude. Both set to use opus 4.8 auto effort. I tried tweaking the models for agents down to haiku and sonnet in omp, but didn't notice any real difference in the speed tokens were being used.
- RamblingCTO 3mo ago
  if the website is any indication, omp is just vibe coded AI slop as well. pi is awesome but it looks like omp is a step down including unnecessary stuff no one needs. it's kinda the opposite of pi
  - Systemerror7A69 3mo ago
    I've heard amazing things about pi and it's effectivenes but when I tried installing it I quickly found out it doesn't respect XDG_BASE_DIRECTORY at all, you need to set some environment variables and the author rejected both a proposal as "going full gpt", seemingly not even knowing about XDG_BASE_DIRECTORY, and even rejected a PR. I've heard really good things but that being my first experience with pi didn't fill me with confidence about it's code quality either. For now I stay with OpenCode I think - I was using zed editor and agent for the longest time anyway and think I will go back to that. CLI tools for me seem a bit too disconnected from the code.
    - RamblingCTO 3mo ago
      Interesting! I wouldn't know, because I'm on mac. I love that it's very basic and I can basically do plug and play with the stuff I need. The load, complexity and system prompt overhang is quite minimal. But in the end, opencode is also fine I guess. I don't need to fiddle around with it too much and just need it to work. So if you're happy, why switch ;) I actually use zed as an editor w/o agents lol

ejpir 3mo ago

what tools are you talking about? Pi has ALL tools the LLM needs to function efficiently and effectively for coding tasks. It can read,write,edit files and can use any bash tool to search files, execute tests and so on. Every time I read this comments I have the feeling you are talking about mcp or sub agents, otherwise this makes no sense at all.

cornedor 3mo ago
That will increase the amount of initial tokens used, because the tools have to be described somewhere. Maybe not as much as Claude Code, but it could get more if you just randomly keep adding tools.

pohl 3mo ago

It starts lean, yeah. Did you know you can prompt it to add the capability you feel you’re missing?