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What PiCode Is
PiCode is a distribution of the editor, not a plugin for it. It takes the MIT-licensed VS Code source, builds it the way VSCodium builds it (minus the Microsoft branding and telemetry), and integrates an agent — Pi — as the editor's own chat participant, with Gentle AI as the workflow harness on top.
You download PiCode, open it, and the agentic environment is already
there: the editor's own chat is the agent, the model is connected from
settings with your subscription or an API key, your skills and memory
live inside PiCode's own profile, and nothing you do touches a Microsoft
service. It is portable — the whole state is a data/ folder beside the
executable — and it is free and complete: the paid part of the plan is
cloud sync of that folder, never a feature lock.
| Extension-based setups | PiCode | |
|---|---|---|
| Agent surface | a webview bolted on | the editor's own Chat |
| Runtime | whatever is on PATH
|
Pi pinned, updated from inside |
| Configuration | spread across profiles | one data/ profile |
| Copilot | disabled but still shipped | product keys deleted from the build |
| The core | you cannot touch it | you compile it from source |
- Not a new editor. Everything unrelated to the agent stays stock VS Code behaviour. PiCode changes identity, removes what it promises to remove, and adds the agent layer.
- Not a reimplementation of Pi or Gentle AI. Provider OAuth, the model catalog, skills, memory — Pi and Gentle AI already ship them. The work is showing them in the editor's own surfaces (why).
- Not a cloud product. It needs no account and works against your own provider keys. Cloud profile sync (Pro) is a paid service on top; the local product is never trimmed to sell it.
- Host — the agent that executes: Pi. PiCode has an internal one and can optionally connect to an external one.
- Harness — the layer that organizes work above the host: Gentle AI.
- Pin — the exact upstream version PiCode is built and verified against.
-
Delta — the data file that describes PiCode's identity,
product.json.
The full list is in the Glossary.
Next: Getting PiCode · Architecture