pi-code

pi-code is a Pi extension that gives Pi agents reusable project-type conventions and workflow guidance so they can work inside real codebases with less repeated correction.

Pi's official homepage is pi.dev. Installation instructions for Pi are maintained in the Pi GitHub repository.

It is useful when teams want AI coding agents to understand shared conventions for WordPress plugins, Laravel apps, WooCommerce stores, React frontends, testing stacks, and other recurring project types without copying the same instructions into every repo.

It does not replace a project's AGENTS.md. Keep repo-specific architecture, commands, test requirements, release process, and maintainer preferences in the project. Use pi-code for reusable conventions and task-to-PR workflow guidance.

Install pi-code

Clone pi-code somewhere stable on your machine:

git clone git@github.com:johnhooks/pi-code.git ~/Projects/pi-code
cd ~/Projects/pi-code
pnpm install
pnpm run build

Install pi-code into a project as a local Pi package:

cd ~/Projects/pi-code
./pi-code install /path/to/project

From inside the target project:

~/Projects/pi-code/pi-code install .

This creates or updates .pi/settings.json in the project and adds the local pi-code checkout as a Pi package. Pi will load pi-code's extension and skills for that project.

After changing pi-code TypeScript code, run:

pnpm run build

Then reload Pi in the target project.

Getting Started

See docs/getting-started.md for the available skills and how the task, plan, implement, test, document, and review workflow is intended to be used.

See docs/why-pi.md for why pi-code uses Pi as its harness.

Known Gaps

pi-code depends on Pi and the available model providers. Some limitations are outside pi-code itself:

• Claude usage through Pi requires Anthropic usage-based billing; Claude Code subscriptions do not currently work with third-party harnesses.
• OpenAI Codex works with third-party harness usage and is currently a viable path for Pi-based pi-code work.
• Pi does not include built-in web search. pi-code is currently local-first, though optional community extensions such as pi-web-access may be useful.