@bacnh85/pi-evolve

Trajectory-based self-learning loop for the Pi coding agent: automatically captures tool-call trajectories, reflects on them to extract transferable learnings, persists them, and injects recent learnings into future sessions.

pi-munin remembers. pi-evolve learns.

This is the active half of agent self-improvement. pi-munin is a passive memory store (the agent must decide to search and store); pi-evolve closes the loop — capture → reflect → consolidate → inject — that runs automatically on every turn.

How it works

CAPTURE (automatic, hooks)             REFLECT (agent tool)
  tool_call  → record tool + input       evolve_reflect returns the sealed
  tool_result → mark ok/err + category    trajectory + a prompt skeleton;
  turn_end   → record usage               the model extracts 0-3 learnings.
  agent_end  → seal snapshot                          │
                                                       ▼
CONSOLIDATE (agent tool)            INJECT (automatic, session start)
  evolve_save → Munin (type:learning)   before_agent_start prepends a
                or .pi/evolve/            "Recent Learnings" digest (last N)
                learnings.jsonl           + the pi-evolve usage header.

Install

pi install npm:@bacnh85/pi-evolve

Tools

| Tool | Description | |------|-------------| | evolve_reflect | Extract transferable learnings from the recent trajectory. Returns the sealed snapshot + a prompt skeleton for the model to produce 0-3 structured learnings (strategy/recovery/optimization). | | evolve_save | Persist a learning to Munin (tag type:learning) or local JSONL. |

Commands

• /evolve — show buffer size, last seal, learnings written this session, active store backend.

Error triage (v0.3)

When a tool call errors, pi-evolve augments the tool_result with an actionable diagnosis and, when available, a stored fix:

read → error(ENOENT)
  💡 Path missing or guessed. Discover the exact path with find first.
  📚 Prior fix for similar issue: use fffind before read for fuzzy paths.

• Static hint — 9 error categories with action-oriented hints (adapted from pi-model-tools' categorizeToolError).
• Stored-fix recall — searches recovery learnings by the error text (Munin search or local keyword rank), best-effort within ~1s.
• Repeat escalation — same error ≥2× adds You've hit X on Y N× — try a different approach.
• Plan-mode aware — in pi-plan read-only mode, the edit_mismatch hint defers the fix ("apply the edit when you exit plan mode") instead of recommending a blocked action. evolve_reflect is allowed in plan mode; evolve_save is blocked (it's a mutation).

Configuration

Optional evolve key in settings.json:

{
  "evolve": {
    "enabled": true,
    "autoInject": true,
    "maxInject": 3,
    "store": "auto",
    "bufferCap": 200,
    "localCap": 500
  }
}

| key | default | meaning | |-----|---------|---------| | enabled | true | master switch for capture + inject | | autoInject | true | prepend learnings digest at session start | | injectMode | "both" | recent | similar | both — similar = search by the user prompt; both = similar first, recent fallback (v0.2) | | maxInject | 3 | max learnings in the digest | | store | "auto" | munin | local | auto (munin if configured, else local) | | bufferCap | 200 | max in-memory trajectory entries | | localCap | 500 | max JSONL entries (bounded at append) | | autoReflect | true | nudge at agent_end when a recovery pattern is detected (v0.2) | | errorTriage | true | master switch for error hints + recall + escalation (v0.3) | | recallStoredFixes | true | search stored learnings by error text on error (v0.3, Layer 2) |

Storage backends

• Munin configured (MUNIN_API_KEY + MUNIN_PROJECT set via env or .env.local) → learnings stored with tag type:learning,domain:<inferred>, searchable via munin_search.
• Munin not configured → local JSONL at .pi/evolve/learnings.jsonl (capped at localCap).

Security (exfiltration guards, v0.3.2)

Mirrors pi-munin's guards so a Munin credential can never be redirected:

• MUNIN_BASE_URL from the project's .env/.env.local (including the parent-dir walk) is only read when the project is trusted — an untrusted checkout can't redirect your shell-exported MUNIN_API_KEY to an attacker's server. Global ~/.pi/agent/.env* and real env vars are always honored.
• A base_url passed alongside api_key/project tool params is accepted (self-hosted servers fine); base_url without its own api_key is ignored.
• MUNIN_BASE_URL must be a well-formed http(s) URL without embedded credentials, query, or fragment.

Safety

• Input digests are truncated to 200 chars and redacted (API keys, tokens, Bearer headers, long base64 blobs → [REDACTED]) before reaching the buffer.
• The trajectory buffer is in-memory only; sealed snapshots are short-lived.
• Injection is best-effort — a read failure never breaks a session.

Design references

Implements the Trajectory-Informed Memory Generation pattern (arXiv:2603.10600) within the Scaffolding Improvement / Memory axis of the self-improving-agents taxonomy (arXiv:2607.13104, awesome-Self-Improving-Agents). Scope is the pragmatic trajectory loop; DGM-style recursive self-modification (arXiv:2505.22954) is out of scope for v0.1.

Development

cd pi-evolve && npm test          # mocha + tsx

License: MIT.