pi-reflag

A pi coding agent extension that transparently rewrites grep commands to rg (ripgrep) and find commands to fd before they execute — faster searches with zero agent behavior change.

Install

pi install npm:@piotr-oles/pi-reflag

Requires rg and fd on $PATH:

brew install ripgrep fd      # macOS
apt install ripgrep fd-find  # Debian/Ubuntu

How it works

Intercepts bash tool calls in the tool_call event. When a command segment starts with grep, find, or xargs grep/xargs find (including piped commands), it translates the arguments to their rg/fd equivalents and rewrites the command in place before execution. The agent never sees the rewrite.

Subshell constructs ($(…), (…)) and commands with variable assignments are left untouched to avoid misinterpreting nested or complex commands.

grep → rg

What gets translated:

| grep flag | rg equivalent | |---|---| | -r, -R, --recursive | dropped (rg is recursive by default) | | -i, --ignore-case | -i | | -n, --line-number | -n | | -v, --invert-match | -v | | -w, --word-regexp | -w | | -l, --files-with-matches | -l | | -c, --count | -c | | -o, --only-matching | -o | | -E, --extended-regexp | dropped (rg uses ERE by default) | | -G, --basic-regexp | dropped, pattern converted from BRE to ERE | | -F, --fixed-strings | -F | | -P, --perl-regexp | -P | | -A, -B, -C | passed through | | --include=<glob> | -g <glob> | | --exclude=<glob> | -g !<glob> | | --exclude-dir=<dir> | -g !<dir>/ | | -s | --no-messages | | -N (numeric context) | -C N |

find → fd

What gets translated:

| find expression | fd equivalent | |---|---| | (always) | -H added — fd excludes hidden files by default, find doesn't | | (auto mode) | --no-ignore added when searching inside a known ignored directory | | -name <glob> | -g <glob> | | -iname <glob> | -i -g <glob> | | -name a -o -name b | -g {a,b} (brace expansion) | | ! -name <glob> / -not -name <glob> | -E <glob> | | -type f/d/l | -t f/d/l | | -maxdepth N | -d N | | -mindepth N | --min-depth N | | -exec cmd {} \; | -x cmd {} | | -exec cmd {} + | -X cmd {} | | -print0 | -0 | | -print | dropped (fd default) | | -L / -follow | -L | | -path <pat> -prune | -E <pat> (exclude directory) | | -path <pat> | -p <pat> (full-path match) | | -regex <pat> | <pat> (fd regex) | | -iregex <pat> | -i <pat> | | -size <spec> | -S <spec> | | -newer <file> | --newer <file> | | -mtime/-atime/-ctime -N | --changed-within Nd | | -mtime/-atime/-ctime +N | --changed-before Nd | | -mmin/-amin/-cmin -N | --changed-within Nmin | | -mmin/-amin/-cmin +N | --changed-before Nmin | | -user <name> | --owner <name> | | -group <name> | --owner :<name> | | -empty | -t e | | -executable | -t x | | -xdev / -mount | --one-file-system | | -quit | -1 |

Ignore mode

Controls when --no-ignore is passed to fd (so it searches inside .gitignored directories):

| Mode | Behaviour | |---|---| | auto (default) | adds --no-ignore when the search path contains a known ignored directory (e.g. node_modules, .venv, .yarn, dist, target, …) | | no-ignore | always adds --no-ignore | | ignore | never adds --no-ignore |

pi --pi-reflag-ignore-mode=no-ignore

PI_REFLAG_IGNORE_MODE=no-ignore pi

node_modules, .yarn, .pnpm-store, .parcel-cache, .turbo, .vite, .cache, .eslintcache, .stylelintcache, .next, .nuxt, .svelte-kit, .vuepress, .output, .docusaurus, .temp, .serverless, .firebase, dist, build, out, target, debug, obj, artifacts, _deps, CMakeFiles, coverage, .nyc_output, .hypothesis, __pycache__, .pytest_cache, .tox, .nox, .venv, venv, .ipynb_checkpoints, vendor, .bundle, .gradle, .mvn, _build, deps, .git

Verbose mode

See exactly how each command was rewritten in the UI:

pi --pi-reflag-verbose

PI_REFLAG_VERBOSE=true pi

Thanks

• ripgrep by Andrew Gallant
• fd by David Peter
• greprip-rs by kaofelix — grep→rg and find→fd translation logic ported from this project (MIT)
• reflag by kluzzebass — additional find→fd flag mappings referenced from this project (MIT)

Development

pnpm install
pnpm test
pnpm typecheck
pnpm check

To test changes manually:

pi -e packages/pi-reflag/src/index.ts