avtc-pi-unstuck

Auto-continue on empty model responses + configurable timeouts for bash and search tools

Features

Empty Response Auto-Continue

When the model ends a turn without producing a text answer (thinking-only, tool-only, or completely blank), this extension nudges it to continue:

1. First empty response → sends continue
2. Second empty response → sends please continue
3. Third empty response → warns the user via UI notification

If the empty response was cut off by the token-length limit, a targeted prompt is sent instead — asking the model for a shorter, more concise response — before the escalation above kicks in.

Tool Timeouts

Stops search and bash tools from hanging indefinitely. Two timeouts, edited via /unstuck:settings (powered by avtc-pi-settings-ui) in human-readable form (2m, 1h, or Infinite):

• Bash timeout (default 10m) — any bash command that runs past the limit is killed; only the command dies, the agent run continues. A timeout the model sets itself is always respected.
• Search timeout (default 2m) — a tighter limit for search tools (grep/find, and search-style bash commands). For bash search commands only the command is killed; for the grep/find tools the whole agent run is aborted (they can't be stopped mid-command) and the model is told to narrow its search. It retries up to twice, then warns you instead.

Compound commands are handled correctly (cd /src && grep "foo", ls -R | xargs grep "TODO", (cd /path && find . -name "*.ts")).

Installation

pi install npm:avtc-pi-unstuck

Configuration

Run /unstuck:settings in pi to open the settings modal and adjust the timeouts (values in human-readable duration form):

| Setting | Default | Description | | ---------------- | ------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | searchTimeoutMs| 2m | Timeout for search tools (grep/find watchdog + search bash commands). | | bashTimeoutMs | 10m | Timeout for any bash command. |

Both accept Infinite to disable the limit. For a search bash command, the shorter of the two applies. Settings are persisted to ~/.pi/agent/avtc-pi-unstuck-settings.json (global) or .pi/avtc-pi-unstuck-settings.json (project) and survive /reload via the PI_SETTINGS_UNSTUCK env var.

Usage

No configuration needed. Both features activate automatically when installed.

Full suite

Check out the full suite of related extensions, avtc-pi — deterministic feature development, subagent delegation, working-memory, behavioral learning, parallel-work guardrails, durable decisions, notifications, and more.

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License

MIT