🕒 pi-stamp — Add Timestamps and Timing to Pi's Transcript

Add a quiet right-aligned timestamp after each user and assistant message in Pi's interactive transcript.

Optional details can show response timing, assistant provenance and usage, or tool duration and outcome.

✨ Features

• Shows each message's recorded creation time on a dim right-aligned row.
• Supports 12/24-hour clocks, seconds, automatic date context, locales, and time zones.
• Optionally shows response latency, model and provider identity, stop reason, tokens, and estimated cost.
• Optionally records tool duration and success or error after each complete tool block.
• Keeps sensitive response IDs and bounded diagnostics behind explicit opt-in and transcript expansion.
• Persists exact session entries across reload and resume while keeping every stamp outside model context.
• Remains width-safe and owns no timer, process, watcher, network request, model tool, or persistent status.

📦 Install

Install from npm:

pi install npm:@narumitw/pi-stamp

Try without installing permanently:

pi -e npm:@narumitw/pi-stamp

Try this package from a local checkout:

npm --workspace @narumitw/pi-stamp run build
pi -e ./packages/pi-stamp

The package declares dist/index.ts, so an unbuilt local checkout must be built before Pi loads the package directory.

🚀 Quick start

Load the extension and use Pi normally. Each new user and assistant message receives a separate dim stamp aligned to the terminal's right edge:

Your message
                                 14:32:08

Assistant reply
                                 14:32:11

Run /stamp to open the presentation menu:

Stamp
24-hour · seconds · Day changes · Invariant · Local · Timing off · Metadata off · Tool stamps hidden

Settings
Status
Help
Close

Settings save immediately. Mounted compatible stamps reformat on the next render, and future stamps use the same effective values.

💬 Commands

Run /stamp in TUI or RPC mode to open the presentation, status, and help menu. The command accepts no arguments and rejects print and JSON modes without changing settings.

⚙️ Settings

The /stamp Settings screen provides these controls:

| Field | Accepted values | Default | Behavior | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | hourCycle | "24h", "12h" | "24h" | Selects the clock style. | | showSeconds | boolean | true | Shows or hides seconds. | | dateContext | "day-change", "always", "never" | "day-change" | Adds a date at recorded day boundaries, every time, or never. | | locale | "invariant", "system", or one BCP 47 tag | "invariant" | Controls localized date/time presentation. | | timeZone | "local" or one supported IANA zone | "local" | Controls time and day-boundary interpretation; UTC is accepted. | | responseTiming | "off", "duration", "detailed" | "off" | Keeps timestamps minimal, adds total assistant duration, or labels first-content and total timing. | | assistantMetadata | "off", "compact", "expanded" | "off" | Captures and shows no assistant metadata, a compact model/total/cost summary, or all supported reported fields. | | toolStamps | boolean | false | Records and shows duration plus success/error for newly observed tools. |

The compatibility defaults produce local HH:mm:ss for ordinary same-day messages. invariant uses Gregorian ISO dates, Latin digits, and English AM/PM. system uses the operating system locale; examples of explicit locales are en-US, fr-FR, and zh-TW.

The canonical user file is:

~/.pi/agent/pi-stamp.json

Pi's configured agent directory replaces ~/.pi/agent when applicable. The file is a partial JSON object. This example shows 12-hour Taipei time without seconds, compact assistant metadata, and tool stamps:

{
  "hourCycle": "12h",
  "showSeconds": false,
  "timeZone": "Asia/Taipei",
  "responseTiming": "duration",
  "assistantMetadata": "compact",
  "toolStamps": true
}

Settings precedence is intentionally:

built-in defaults -> user pi-stamp.json

Presentation is a personal preference, so pi-stamp does not read project settings or extension-specific environment variables. Missing settings do not create a file or directory. Updates preserve unknown fields and publish through a private temporary file plus atomic rename. Malformed or invalid files become read-only and are never overwritten; fix the reported file and run /reload. A fresh process uses defaults while the file is invalid, and a running process retains its last valid settings.

Reads and writes are serialized within one Pi process. Separate Pi processes do not share a lock, so concurrent saves are last-writer-wins even though each process rereads immediately before atomic publication.

/stamp supports TUI and RPC dialog modes. Print and JSON command invocations reject without writing ad hoc protocol output. Transcript stamps themselves are appended only in TUI mode.

🕰️ Timestamp and response-timing semantics

• A user stamp is the timestamp recorded when Pi creates the submitted user message.

• An assistant clock is the timestamp recorded when Pi creates the response stream/message.

• New assistant entries separately record when this extension observes Pi's final message_end. responseTiming: "duration" shows creation-to-completion elapsed time:

  14:32:08 · 3.2s

• responseTiming: "detailed" distinguishes the first meaningful streamed content observed by Pi from total completion:

  14:32:08 · first 0.8s · total 3.2s

First content is the first non-empty text, thinking, or tool-call update—not a provider-server timestamp or guaranteed time-to-first-token. first n/a means Pi finalized the response without such an update; completion time is never substituted.

• If an assistant message invokes tools, response timing ends at the assistant's message_end and excludes tool execution even though the assistant stamp appears after the complete tool block.
• Error and aborted assistant messages use the same local completion boundary. Invalid or backwards clock observations degrade to timestamp-only data rather than showing a negative or clamped value.
• dateContext: "day-change" compares each newly recorded message stamp with its persisted predecessor in the selected time zone. The first known stamp stays time-only.
• Changing presentation settings re-renders compatible recorded stamps without rewriting session files.

Timing labels are local Pi lifecycle observations, not provider latency telemetry. They require no network request or refresh task. Relative labels such as 3m ago remain unavailable because they would require periodic background refresh and lifecycle cleanup.

🧾 Assistant provenance and usage

Assistant metadata is captured only when assistantMetadata is "compact" or "expanded" as the assistant stamp is finalized. A compact stamp can look like:

14:32:08 · 3.2s
claude-sonnet-4-6 · 842 tok · est $0.018

When Pi reports a response model different from the requested model, compact mode keeps both:

requested-alias → provider-response-model · 842 tok

Expanded mode adds labeled rows for API, provider, requested model, provider-reported response model, stop reason, and each individually reported input/output/reasoning/cache-read/cache-write/total token or estimated-cost field. Missing values stay absent; pi-stamp never derives a token total, response model, cost, or diagnostic message.

Pi's transcript expansion action (app.tools.expand, Ctrl+O by default) is the explicit debug view. With assistant metadata enabled, it may additionally show the sanitized response ID and at most five diagnostic summaries. A summary contains only diagnostic type, error name, and error code. Stamp data never copies diagnostic messages, stacks, details, raw payloads, message content, tool arguments, or textSignature, thinkingSignature, and thoughtSignature fields. Terminal controls are removed and retained text is bounded before persistence.

Provider support varies. Every optional field is shown only when present and valid on that finalized assistant message. The cost label says est because Pi's message value is an estimate based on the provider/model usage data available to Pi; the extension performs no price lookup.

🛠️ Tool timing

With toolStamps: true, the extension observes tool_execution_start and tool_execution_end, pairs them by exact toolCallId, and appends entries in turn_end.toolResults source order:

tool read · 1.3s · success
tool bash · 2.5s · error

The duration is the extension's local start-to-end observation. Outcome is Pi's final isError state; it is not inferred from tool text. Tool arguments, output, result details, and IDs are never shown. Because Pi's public API cannot decorate built-in tool rows, stamps appear as separate rows after the complete tool block.

The tracker owns at most 256 observations in one turn. Duplicate, unmatched, malformed, backwards, or excess observations are ignored. Pending state is cleared on a new turn, agent cancellation/end, session replacement, reload, and shutdown. Tools that were not observed while tool stamps were enabled are not backfilled.

🔒 Context and persistence

Stamps use Pi custom session entries. Pi renders those entries in the interactive transcript but excludes them from model context. The extension does not modify user, assistant, or tool-result message content.

Message entry compatibility is cumulative:

• Version 1 stores role and creation timestamp.
• Version 2 adds the previous message-stamp timestamp for live date-boundary formatting.
• Version 3 assistant entries add completion and optional first-content observations.
• Version 4 assistant entries add a sanitized metadata snapshot when metadata capture is enabled. Timing remains optional so a valid metadata stamp survives a backwards timing clock.
• Version 1 tool entries store only bounded association/timing/outcome data.

Existing versions remain readable. Changing settings never rewrites session history. Once recorded, a stamp survives /reload and session resume while the extension remains loaded. Messages and tools created before pi-stamp recorded them are not backfilled because Pi's current public API cannot insert a new custom entry into an older position in the session tree.

🚧 Limitations

• Pi does not currently expose a public decorator for built-in message or tool rows, so stamps appear as separate transcript rows rather than inside the original bubble/block.
• Another extension can append transcript entries at the same lifecycle boundary, so strict visual adjacency between independently loaded extensions is not guaranteed.
• There are no arbitrary format strings, relative labels, provider-server latency, token/cost estimation beyond Pi's message fields, aggregates, raw diagnostics, or analytics dashboard.

🗂️ Package layout

packages/pi-stamp/
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts       # Thin Pi package entrypoint
│   ├── format.ts      # Date, clock, and response-elapsed formatting/settings types
│   ├── metadata.ts    # Bounded metadata capture, validation, and compact/expanded labels
│   ├── menu.ts        # /stamp presentation menu
│   ├── settings.ts    # Validation and atomic user settings
│   └── stamp.ts       # Entry compatibility, rendering, and lifecycle ownership
├── dist/               # Generated source-mapped Jiti runtime and lazy menu chunk
├── scripts/
│   └── build-runtime.mjs
├── test/
│   ├── build-runtime.test.ts
│   ├── format.test.ts
│   ├── metadata.test.ts
│   ├── menu.test.ts
│   ├── settings.test.ts
│   ├── stamp-tool.test.ts
│   └── stamp.test.ts
├── README.md
├── LICENSE
├── package.json
└── tsconfig.json

🔎 Keywords

Pi extension, Pi coding agent, message timestamps, assistant provenance, token usage, tool timing, transcript metadata, TUI metadata, TypeScript Pi package.

📄 License

MIT. See LICENSE.