pi-fetch

Installable pi package that adds a /fetch slash command.

Repository: https://github.com/ibeex/pi-fetch

/fetch retrieves web content and injects it into pi's session context so the next prompt can use it.

Features

• /fetch <url> only
• uses jina for normal public URLs and raw for localhost, private-network, and other likely local URLs
• retries Jina once with auth on 401/429/auth-required style responses
• loads Jina API key from JINA_API_KEY, JINA_API_TOKEN, or pass api/jina
• supports site-specific cleanup before truncation
• currently cleans Hacker News item pages so the model sees story metadata + comment text instead of repetitive UI noise
• shows a live footer status while fetching
• shows a visible fetch result row in chat; expand it with Ctrl+O to inspect what was captured
• truncates fetched content before injecting it into context
• when truncation happens, only the first PI_FETCH_MAX_CONTEXT_CHARS chars are added to context and the full fetched response is saved to a temp file
• default fetch context limit is 28000 chars, roughly ~7k tokens for normal English text
• stores fetched content as a hidden custom session message, so it is available to the model without cluttering chat

Install

Because this repo now has a package.json with a pi manifest, you can install it as a pi package.

Clone the repository

git clone git@github.com:ibeex/pi-fetch.git
cd pi-fetch

Install globally

pi install /absolute/path/to/pi-fetch

Install into another project

From the target project directory:

pi install /absolute/path/to/pi-fetch -l

Then start pi in that project, or run:

/reload

Quick test without installing

From outside this repo:

pi -e /absolute/path/to/pi-fetch

If you test from inside this repo and already have another copy of pi-fetch auto-loaded, disable extension auto-discovery to avoid duplicate /fetch commands:

pi --no-extensions -e .

Or load the raw extension file directly:

pi --no-extensions -e ./index.ts

Usage

/fetch https://example.com/docs
/fetch http://localhost:3000/health

After /fetch, ask a normal question in the next prompt, for example:

/fetch https://example.com/docs
What are the main points from that page?

In interactive mode, /fetch also shows:

• a temporary footer spinner while the request is running
• a visible result row after completion
• a short collapsed preview of the captured content
• expandable details with Ctrl+O, including the exact content that was injected into context

Jina auth

Lookup order:

1. JINA_API_KEY
2. JINA_API_TOKEN
3. pass api/jina

Example:

pass insert api/jina

Optional env vars

• PI_FETCH_TIMEOUT_MS default 30000
• PI_FETCH_MAX_CONTEXT_CHARS default 28000 (roughly ~7k tokens)
• PI_FETCH_JINA_PASS_PATH default api/jina

Notes

• This is intentionally slash-command based, not an LLM tool.
• /fetch adds context for the next prompt; it does not automatically ask the model a follow-up question.
• PI_FETCH_MAX_CONTEXT_CHARS only affects fetched-page context from this extension.
• truncated means the fetched response was larger than PI_FETCH_MAX_CONTEXT_CHARS, so only the first chunk was injected into model context.
• If truncated, the visible result row shows how many chars were kept vs omitted, and expanded details show the temp file path for the full response.
• The visible fetch result row is filtered out of model context; only the hidden fetched-content message is sent to the model.
• Jina reader is used only for public web URLs. Localhost, private-network, and other likely local URLs use raw fetch automatically.