oh-pi

🐜 oh-pi

One command to supercharge pi-coding-agent.

Like oh-my-zsh for pi — but with an autonomous ant colony.

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npx oh-pi

30-Second Start

npx oh-pi    # configure everything
pi           # start coding

oh-pi auto-detects your environment, guides setup in a modern TUI, and writes ~/.pi/agent/ for you.

Already configured? It detects existing files and offers backup before overwriting.

2-Minute Value

pi-coding-agent is powerful by default, but manual setup across providers, themes, extensions, skills, and prompts is slow. oh-pi compresses that setup into under a minute — then adds an ant colony swarm for multi-agent execution.

Want the fast walkthrough? See docs/DEMO-SCRIPT.md.

When Not to Use Ant Colony

Use plain pi workflows (without colony) when your task is tiny, highly exploratory, or needs constant human steering.

For positioning, scope, and milestones, see ROADMAP.md. For rationale behind key trade-offs, see DECISIONS.md.

What You Get

~/.pi/agent/
├── auth.json            API keys (0600 permissions)
├── settings.json        Model, theme, thinking level
├── keybindings.json     Vim/Emacs shortcuts (optional)
├── AGENTS.md            Role-specific AI guidelines
├── extensions/          8 extensions (7 default + ant-colony)
│   ├── safe-guard       Dangerous command confirmation + path protection
│   ├── git-guard        Auto stash checkpoints + dirty repo warning
│   ├── auto-session     Session naming from first message
│   ├── custom-footer    Enhanced status bar (token/cost/time/git/cwd)
│   ├── compact-header   Streamlined startup info
│   ├── auto-update      Check for updates on launch
│   ├── bg-process       ⏳ **Bg Process** — Auto-background long-running commands (dev servers, etc.)
│   └── ant-colony/      🐜 Autonomous multi-agent swarm (optional)
├── prompts/             10 templates (/review /fix /commit /test ...)
├── skills/              11 skills (tools + UI design + workflows)
└── themes/              6 custom themes

Setup Modes

Mode	Steps	For
🚀 Quick	3	Pick provider → enter key → done
📦 Preset	2	Choose a role profile → enter key
🎛️ Custom	6	Pick everything yourself

Presets

	Theme	Thinking	Includes
⚫ Full Power	oh-pi Dark	high	All extensions + bg-process + ant-colony
🔴 Clean	Default	off	No extensions, just core
🐜 Colony Only	oh-pi Dark	medium	Ant-colony with minimal setup

Providers

Anthropic · OpenAI · Google Gemini · Groq · OpenRouter · xAI · Mistral · FOXNIO (recommended public-benefit Claude provider)

Auto-detects API keys from environment variables.

🐜 Ant Colony

The headline feature. A multi-agent swarm modeled after real ant ecology — deeply integrated into pi's SDK.

You: "Refactor auth from sessions to JWT"

oh-pi:
  🔍 Scout ants explore codebase (haiku — fast, cheap)
  📋 Task pool generated from discoveries
  ⚒️  Worker ants execute in parallel (sonnet — capable)
  🛡️ Soldier ants review all changes (sonnet — thorough)
  ✅ Done — report auto-injected into conversation

What's new in v0.1.75

• Planning Recovery Loop: if scouts return unstructured intel, colony enters planning_recovery instead of failing immediately.
• Plan Validation Gate: before workers start, tasks are validated (title/description/caste/priority).
• Scout Quorum for complex goals: multi-step goals default to at least 2 scouts for better planning reliability.

Colony lifecycle (simple)

SCOUTING → (if needed) PLANNING_RECOVERY → WORKING → REVIEWING → DONE

Architecture

Each ant is an in-process AgentSession (pi SDK), not a child process:

pi (main process)
  └─ ant_colony tool
       └─ queen.ts → runColony()
            └─ spawnAnt() → createAgentSession()
                 ├─ session.subscribe() → real-time token stream
                 ├─ Zero startup overhead (shared process)
                 └─ Shared auth & model registry

Interactive mode: Colony runs in the background — you keep chatting. A live widget shows ant progress, and results are auto-injected when done.

Print mode (pi -p): Colony runs synchronously, blocks until complete.

Why ants?

Real ant colonies solve complex problems without central control. Each ant follows simple rules, communicates through pheromone trails, and the colony self-organizes. oh-pi maps this directly:

Real Ants	oh-pi
Scout finds food	Scout scans codebase, identifies targets
Pheromone trail	.ant-colony/pheromone.jsonl — shared discoveries
Worker carries food	Worker executes task on assigned files
Soldier guards nest	Soldier reviews changes, requests fixes
More food → more ants	More tasks → higher concurrency (auto-adapted)
Pheromone evaporates	10-minute half-life — stale info fades

Real-time UI

In interactive mode, the colony shows live progress:

• Status bar — compact footer with real metrics: tasks done, active ants, tool calls, output tokens, cost, elapsed time
• Ctrl+Shift+A — overlay detail panel with task list, active ant streams, and colony log
• Notification — completion summary when done

Use /colony-stop to abort a running colony.

Signal Protocol

The colony communicates with the main conversation via structured signals, so the model never has to guess background state. Updates are passively pushed (non-blocking), so polling is optional:

Signal	Meaning
COLONY_SIGNAL:LAUNCHED	Colony started in background
COLONY_SIGNAL:SCOUTING	Scout wave is exploring / planning
COLONY_SIGNAL:PLANNING_RECOVERY	Plan recovery loop is restructuring tasks
COLONY_SIGNAL:WORKING	Worker phase is executing tasks
COLONY_SIGNAL:REVIEWING	Soldier review phase is active
COLONY_SIGNAL:TASK_DONE	A task finished (progress checkpoint)
COLONY_SIGNAL:COMPLETE	Colony finished and report injected
COLONY_SIGNAL:FAILED	Colony failed with diagnostics
COLONY_SIGNAL:BUDGET_EXCEEDED	Budget limit reached

Turn Control

Each ant has a strict turn budget to prevent runaway execution:

Scout: 8 turns · Worker: 15 turns · Soldier: 8 turns

Model Selection

The colony auto-detects available models and lets the LLM pick the best fit per role:

Role	Strategy	Example
Scout	Fast & cheap — only reads, no edits	claude-haiku-4-5, gpt-4o-mini
Worker	Capable — makes code changes	claude-sonnet-4-0, gpt-4o
Soldier	Same as worker or slightly cheaper	claude-sonnet-4-0

Omit model overrides to use the current session model for every ant.

Cost Reporting

The colony tracks cost per ant and total spend, reported in the final summary. Cost never interrupts execution — turn limits and concurrency control handle resource management.

Auto-trigger

The LLM decides when to deploy the colony. You don't have to think about it:

• ≥3 files need changes → colony
• Parallel workstreams possible → colony
• Single file change → direct execution (no colony overhead)

Adaptive Concurrency

The colony automatically finds the optimal parallelism for your machine:

Cold start     →  ceil(max/2) ants (fast ramp-up)
Exploration    →  +1 each wave, monitoring throughput
Throughput ↓   →  lock optimal, stabilize
CPU > 85%      →  reduce immediately
429 rate limit →  -1 concurrency + backoff (2s→5s→10s cap)
Tasks done     →  scale down to minimum

File Safety

One ant per file. Always. Conflicting tasks are automatically blocked and resume when locks release.

Skills

oh-pi ships 11 skills in three categories.

🔧 Tool Skills

Zero-dependency Node.js scripts — no API keys needed.

Skill	What it does
context7	Query latest library docs via Context7 API
web-search	DuckDuckGo search (free, no key)
web-fetch	Extract webpage content as plain text

# Examples
./skills/context7/search.js "react"
./skills/web-search/search.js "typescript generics" -n 5
./skills/web-fetch/fetch.js https://example.com

🎨 UI Design System Skills

Complete design specs with CSS tokens, component examples, and design principles. The agent loads these when you ask for a specific visual style.

Skill	Style	CSS Prefix
liquid-glass	Apple WWDC 2025 translucent glass	--lg-
glassmorphism	Frosted glass blur + transparency	--glass-
claymorphism	Soft 3D clay-like surfaces	--clay-
neubrutalism	Bold borders, offset shadows, high contrast	--nb-

Each includes references/tokens.css with ready-to-use CSS custom properties.

You: "Build a dashboard with liquid glass style"
pi loads liquid-glass skill → applies --lg- tokens, glass effects, specular highlights

🔄 Workflow Skills

Skill	What it does
quick-setup	Detect project type, generate .pi/ config
debug-helper	Error analysis, log interpretation, profiling
git-workflow	Branching, commits, PRs, conflict resolution
ant-colony	Colony management commands and strategies

Themes

🌙 oh-pi Dark	Cyan + purple, high contrast
🌙 Cyberpunk	Neon magenta + electric cyan
🌙 Nord	Arctic blue palette
🌙 Catppuccin Mocha	Pastel on dark
🌙 Tokyo Night	Blue + purple twilight
🌙 Gruvbox Dark	Warm retro tones

Prompt Templates

/review    Code review: bugs, security, performance
/fix       Fix errors with minimal changes
/explain   Explain code, simple to detailed
/refactor  Refactor preserving behavior
/test      Generate tests
/commit    Conventional Commit message
/pr        Pull request description
/security  OWASP security audit
/optimize  Performance optimization
/document  Generate documentation

AGENTS.md Templates

Template	Focus
General Developer	Universal coding guidelines
Full-Stack Developer	Frontend + backend + DB
Security Researcher	Pentesting & audit
Data & AI Engineer	MLOps & pipelines
🐜 Colony Operator	Multi-agent orchestration

Also a Pi Package

Skip the configurator, just install the resources:

pi install npm:oh-pi

Adds all themes, prompts, skills, and extensions to your existing pi setup.

Requirements

• Node.js ≥ 20
• At least one LLM API key
• pi-coding-agent (installed automatically if missing)

License

MIT