An information-only startup dashboard for the pi coding agent. At startup it mounts a branded RECTOR LABS panel above the live prompt — logo, recent sessions, recent git projects, a key legend, and footer stats — alongside pi's native [Context]/[Skills]/[Extensions] startup info, then clears itself on the first agent turn so it scrolls away like the rest of the startup output. No overlay, nothing occluded, no native hotkey rebinding, no key hijacking — the prompt is live the instant pi starts.
In-house for
@getpipher. Built against pi 0.82.
On session_start (startup and /reload only — not on new/resume/fork navigation), it renders a dashboard panel above the editor via setWidget({ placement: "aboveEditor" }):
- RECTOR LABS ASCII logo: compact wordmark under 60 cols, small figlet block at ≥ 60 (consistent across all pane sizes — never overflows or clips).
- Session names with embedded newlines (multi-line first prompts) are collapsed to a single line; long names are truncated with an ellipsis so the msg-count/time tail always stays visible inside the recents box.
- Header: current datetime,
cwd, git branch + status glyph. - Recent sessions (from pi's session manager) and recent projects (git scan of
~/local-dev+~/dotfiles, cached 5 min), each row with branch + dirty/ahead/behind/conflict status and relative time. - Two-column key legend grouped under
sessions/projects/model/workflow/system. - Footer: open TODO count (armory-todo, loose coupling), current model, pi version, session count, time-based greeting.
- Responsive: single-column stacked recents + abbreviated menu under 90 cols; side-by-side + full menu at 90–149; 6+6 recents at ≥ 150.
Welcome is information-only. On session_start it mounts a dashboard panel
above the live prompt field via ctx.ui.setWidget("welcome", …, { placement: "aboveEditor" }) — no overlay, nothing occluded. The prompt field is native and
focused the instant pi starts; you can type immediately.
- Native startup is kept (
quietStartupstaysfalse): pi's[Context]/[Skills]/[Extensions]blocks and the package-update notice render as normal, above the welcome dashboard. Nothing welcome shows is recreated from pi-internal data — no drift. - Startup-only: on the first
agent_startturn (you send a message and the agent begins), welcome clears the widget — so the dashboard behaves like pi's native startup blocks (shows, then scrolls away as you chat). - Toggle:
Ctrl+Shift+Hshows/hides the dashboard any time.
Welcome hijacks no keys — every keystroke goes to the prompt. Model /
thinking / quit / theme use pi's native keybindings (Ctrl+L / Shift+Tab /
Ctrl+D / /theme), listed in the dashboard's menu legend.
Welcome defines no one-key hotkeys. The dashboard's menu legend lists the
/welcome:* commands to type and pi's native keys:
| Command | Action |
|---|---|
/welcome:switch [n] |
switch to a recent session (index arg or picker) |
/welcome:new |
new session (current cwd) |
/welcome:resume |
resume most-recent other session |
/welcome:fork |
fork current session at the latest entry |
/welcome:open-project [n] |
resume the most-recent session in a recent git project |
/welcome:reload |
reload pi (extensions, skills, prompts, themes, keybindings) |
/todo |
(armory-todo) triage |
| pi native | Action |
|---|---|
Ctrl+L |
pick model |
Shift+Tab |
thinking level |
Ctrl+D |
quit pi (when editor empty) |
/theme |
theme |
Ctrl+Shift+H |
toggle the welcome dashboard |
The recent-sessions and recent-projects rows are numbered 1…N as a
reference index for the /welcome:* commands' <n> arg. /welcome:switch and
/welcome:open-project take a 1-based index or fall back to a picker; both ship
argument completions.
/welcome:open-projectresumes the most-recent session in the chosen project (not "new fresh session in dir"). pi'snewSession()is fixed to the current cwd, andSessionManager.create()doesn't persist the session header until the first agent response — so a fresh session in another dir isn't doable from an extension. Resuming is the honest, working v0.1 semantics; start pi in the dir to create the first session there.
Reopen: Ctrl+Shift+H re-shows the home page any time. Mac-friendly (unlike Alt+H, which types ˙ and collides with pi's native cursor-left).
pi install npm:@getpipher/welcome
No configuration required — works with default pi. No native hotkeys are rebound; keybindings.json is untouched. The only registered shortcut is ctrl+shift+h.
pi ≥ 0.82. TypeScript (ES2022, strict). Node ≥ 20. No tools, no commands-as-LLM-tools, no providers — a pure-UI extension (one session_start handler + one ctrl+shift+h shortcut + the /welcome:* commands).
The session-control menu actions (new / resume / fork / switch / open-project / reload) are registered as /welcome:* commands because their handlers receive ExtensionCommandContext — the only place pi exposes session mutation. Extension session_start / registerShortcut handlers receive plain ExtensionContext, and there is no invokeCommand/runAction API, so welcome can't fire those commands by key — they're typed as slash commands (listed in the dashboard's menu legend).
A single small upstream addition would light all of them up as one-key: ctx.invokeCommand(name, args?) on ExtensionContext (or handing ExtensionCommandContext to shortcut/overlay handlers). That's the v0.2 milestone.
MIT — RECTOR.