pi-content-layout

A small Pi extension that insets the main conversation, renders the active editor as a full-width dark surface, and gives submitted prompts a compact rail shell.

Assistant output
  Text wraps inside the inset width.

Active prompt
████████████████████████████████████████████████
  prompt text                        darker background
████████████████████████████████████████████████

Submitted prompt
  ▎                                            darker background
  ▎ prompt text                                darker background
  ▎                                            darker background

Assistant and submitted-message content keep the two-column outer inset. The active prompt intentionally ignores that inset: its darker background fills the terminal width, with no rail, one extra layout column on each side of Pi's configured editor padding, and one background-colored row above and below the content. Real scroll indicators replace the corresponding padding row when needed. The submitted prompt remains unchanged: it keeps Pi's message padding and the thin rail outside its darker body. Autocomplete stays outside the active surface.

Scope boundary

This package owns the transcript surface: the message inset, system-text and status-rule alignment, the editor surface, and the submitted-prompt shell for user messages. It deliberately never renders tool execution rows today: collapsed tool calls, grouping, subagent plans, thinking labels, and user-run ! bash blocks all live in @pi-kaush/pi-tool-call-markers (which also owns the rail shell those blocks use).

The one cross-package contract is spacing: ! blocks align with message text at this package's message inset, so pi-tool-call-markers mirrors contentInset for its bash blocks (see its src/bash-block.ts). Change indentation in both packages together.

pi-intercom message surface

When pi-intercom is installed, this package restyles its inbound intercom_message box onto the shared transcript columns: the frame's left border sits on the tool-marker column (the outer inset), and the From: title and body text share the text column used by tool rows and Thought labels. The frame borrows the bash-mode green of ! shell-block rules, all text inside stays muted, and the sender name uses the mdHeading orange (the Thought-label hue in cobalt2 and Pi's stock themes). The redundant Ctrl+O expands title hint is dropped (the meta line inside the box keeps Ctrl+O to expand). Content is unchanged, and expanded view keeps pi-intercom's full body, attachment, and reply sections.

Pi resolves custom message renderers in extension load order (first registration wins), so list this package before pi-intercom in packages for the restyle to take effect. Without pi-intercom installed the registration is inert; malformed message payloads fall back to Pi's default custom-message box.

Install

{
  "packages": ["npm:@pi-kaush/pi-content-layout"]
}

The package is not published while its version is 0.0.0; use the repository path for local development.

Theme ownership

The active editor surface and submitted message body paint with a fixed near-black #071312 background (PROMPT_SURFACE_BG) so both user-input surfaces stay identical; the theme's selectedBg token continues to serve selections and dialogs. Active input uses the theme's userMessageText foreground and restores it after embedded ANSI resets without overriding inline identifier colors. The extension also consumes accent for the submitted-prompt rail and muted for editor scroll hints.

Themes control colors, while this extension controls width and component shape; a theme cannot provide the layout itself.

Composition and compatibility

The editor factory wraps the currently configured custom editor, or creates Pi's CustomEditor when none exists. It decorates render() only; text handling, callbacks, autocomplete, history, paste, application keybindings, image paste, and extension shortcuts remain on Pi's editor.

Pi does not currently expose public renderers for native user and assistant messages. Their side inset and submitted prompt shell therefore use guarded prototype adapters around Pi's exported components. The adapters are idempotent, restore the original renderers on shutdown, and fall back to native rendering if the runtime shape changes.

For the complete visual system, combine this package with:

• @pi-kaush/pi-footer-minimal for matching footer inset and footer working state; and
• @pi-kaush/pi-tool-call-markers for unboxed tool rows, subagent plans, thinking markers, and user-run ! bash blocks.

License

MIT