pi-auggie-router

Opinionated /skill: sub-agent router for the Pi framework. Tightly couples Anthropic-style SKILL.md execution with the Augment Code (auggie) Context Engine via MCP.

New to pi-auggie-router? Start with the Getting Started guide for a step-by-step walkthrough of your first skill workflow.

pi-auggie-router intercepts /skill:<name> commands inside a Pi host, parses the matching SKILL.md, runs a 2-pass Actor/Judge brief loop against a cheap routing model, then dispatches the work to an isolated Pi sub-agent that is forced to retrieve workspace context through Augment Code's codebase-retrieval MCP tool. The main thread stays clean — the user sees their command and the synthesized result, nothing else.

Why

Out of the box, /skill execution dumps full file blobs into context, blows out token budgets, and produces inconsistent retrieval. This router takes the opposite stance: a single hardcoded path through Augment's semantic engine, strict timeouts, and a payload ceiling that forces the model to refine its own queries instead of vomiting megabytes back into the loop.

This package is vendor-locked on purpose. It will not run without a working local auggie install.

Installation

npm install pi-auggie-router

Requires Node ≥ 20.6 and a working Augment Code CLI (auggie account status must exit 0).

Mounting it inside a Pi host

import { createRouter } from "pi-auggie-router";

const router = createRouter(piHost);

// Later, on shutdown:
router.dispose();

piHost must satisfy the PiHost contract exported from this package:

| Method | Purpose | | ----------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- | | postSystemMessage | Append [System]: … lines to the visible thread. | | postAssistantMessage | Append the sub-agent's final synthesized output to the thread. | | setInputLocked | Disable / re-enable the user's main editor while a skill runs. | | getRecentMessages(n) | Return the last n chat messages for Actor brief assembly. | | callLLM(opts) | Cheap routing-class call used by Actor + Judge. | | runSubAgent(opts) | Spin up an isolated Pi agent with MCP servers + middleware attached. | | onUserInput(cb) | Invoked for every user input; return {cancel:true} to swallow. | | onBeforeMessage(cb) | Invoked before a typed message is sent; used for the Q&A fallback. | | resolveWorkspacePath | Resolve paths inside the active workspace (for .pi/skills/...). | | resolveHomePath | Resolve paths inside ~ (for ~/.pi/agent/skills/...). | | log (optional) | Structured logger. |

Configuration

All knobs live under auggieRouter in .pi/settings.json:

{
  "auggieRouter": {
    "defaultProvider": "openrouter",
    "routingModel": "anthropic/claude-3-5-haiku",
    "historyWindow": 20,
    "maxJudgeIterations": 2,
    "routingTimeoutMs": 60000,
    "qaTimeoutMs": 300000,
    "totalTimeoutMs": 300000,
    "inactivityTimeoutMs": 60000,
    "subAgentTemperature": 0.0,
    "overflowCeilingBytes": 25000,
    "auggieBinPath": "auggie",
    "allowedProviderPrefixes": [],
    "executionRouting": {
      "enabled": false,
      "preference": "balanced",
      "surfaceDecision": false,
      "skillModelPolicy": "pin",
      "models": {
        "cheap": "anthropic/claude-3-5-haiku",
        "balanced": "anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet",
        "frontier": "anthropic/claude-3-7-sonnet"
      }
    }
  }
}

Note on data exposure: the routing-class model (default claude-3-5-haiku via OpenRouter) sees the last historyWindow chat messages. If your chat may contain secrets, point routingModel at a self-hosted gateway or trim historyWindow.

Defaults match the values shown above. Only defaultProvider is expected to change in normal use; everything else is opinionated for a reason.

Adaptive Execution Model Routing

By default, the router resolves the execution model from the SKILL.md model: frontmatter field (or a built-in fallback). This means easy tasks and hard tasks run on the same static model.

Adaptive execution routing adds a lightweight model-selection step: after the Actor/Judge loop classifies the task by complexity and risk, the router picks an appropriate model from a configurable cheap / balanced / frontier pool. The selection is sticky for the entire /skill run — one model is chosen before the sub-agent starts and never changes mid-execution.

Disabled by default. Existing behavior is preserved unless you explicitly opt in.

Enabling adaptive routing

The smallest opt-in is:

{
  "auggieRouter": {
    "executionRouting": {
      "enabled": true,
      "surfaceDecision": true
    }
  }
}

Omitted fields use the defaults shown in the main configuration block above.

How it works

1. The Judge (already running in the Actor/Judge loop) classifies the task with an executionRoute that includes tier, complexity, risk, confidence, and a reason.
2. The router applies a preference adjustment (see below) and safety floors — e.g. architecture_change tasks always use frontier.
3. Exactly one model is selected from the configured pool and passed to the sub-agent. No mid-run re-routing occurs.
4. Route metadata is never injected into the sub-agent system prompt, preserving prompt-cache efficiency.

Settings

| Setting | Values | Default | Purpose | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | enabled | true / false | false | Turn adaptive routing on. | | preference | preferCheap / balanced / preferBest | balanced | Cost-vs-quality bias. | | surfaceDecision | true / false | false | Show the selected model in the [System] execution message. Routed decisions include tier; pinned/fallback decisions name their source. | | skillModelPolicy | pin / ignore | pin | How SKILL.md model: interacts with routing. | | models.cheap | model ID | anthropic/claude-3-5-haiku | Model for read-only / low-complexity tasks. | | models.balanced | model ID | anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet | Model for scoped edits and medium-complexity tasks. | | models.frontier | model ID | anthropic/claude-3-7-sonnet | Model for multi-file / architecture / high-risk tasks. |

All configured model IDs pass through mapModel(...) so defaultProvider and allowedProviderPrefixes continue to apply.

Preference adjustment

| Preference | Behavior | | --- | --- | | balanced | Use the base tier chosen by the Judge. | | preferCheap | Downgrade balanced → cheap when complexity is medium, risk is read_only or small_edit, and confidence ≥ 0.7. Never downgrades high-risk tasks. | | preferBest | Upgrade cheap edit tasks to balanced. Upgrade unknown-risk tasks to frontier. |

Safety floors (always enforced)

Regardless of preference:

• architecture_change always routes to frontier.
• multi_file_edit never routes below balanced.
• unknown risk with confidence < 0.5 never routes below balanced.
• If the Judge did not pass (Q&A was needed), the minimum tier is balanced.

Skill model policy

| Policy | Behavior | | --- | --- | | pin | If SKILL.md has model:, use it exactly as before. Only tasks without a pinned model go through adaptive routing. Safest default. | | ignore | Ignore SKILL.md model: and always route from the pool. Useful for team-level cost control. |

Missing pool entries

If the selected tier has no model configured, the router walks a fallback chain:

• Missing cheap → balanced → frontier
• Missing balanced → frontier → cheap
• Missing frontier → balanced → cheap

If nothing in the pool resolves, the router falls back to legacy model resolution so the skill still runs. When no minimum tier is active, this may use SKILL.md model: through mapModel(skill.rawModel, ...). When the Judge did not pass and the minimum tier is balanced, fallback uses the default balanced model instead of a potentially cheaper pinned model.

Observability

When surfaceDecision=true, the execution message includes the selected model. For routed decisions it includes the tier; for pinned or fallback decisions it names the source instead of showing the neutral balanced sentinel:

[System]: ⚙️ Executing /skill:refactor using balanced model openrouter/anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet. Reason: route balanced (complexity=medium, risk=small_edit, confidence=0.82)
[System]: ⚙️ Executing /skill:refactor using SKILL.md model openrouter/anthropic/claude-3-7-sonnet. Reason: skillModelPolicy=pin; SKILL.md model honoured.
[System]: ⚙️ Executing /skill:refactor using fallback model openrouter/anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet. Reason: Execution-routing pool unavailable; used legacy default model resolution.

When surfaceDecision=false (default), the existing minimal message is shown:

[System]: ⚙️ Executing /skill:refactor (Auggie semantic retrieval running...)

Every skill execution emits a structured log via host.log:

{
  "event": "auggie-router.execution-route",
  "skill": "refactor",
  "tier": "balanced",
  "model": "openrouter/anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet",
  "source": "execution-routing",
  "complexity": "medium",
  "risk": "small_edit",
  "confidence": 0.82,
  "routeTier": "balanced",
  "effectiveTier": "balanced"
}

No user prompt content, chat history, or secrets are logged.

Security-relevant settings

| Setting | Default | Purpose | | --- | --- | --- | | auggieBinPath | "auggie" | Absolute path to the auggie binary. Override to avoid $PATH lookup attacks in shared environments. | | allowedProviderPrefixes | [] (allow all) | Non-empty array restricts which provider prefixes a SKILL model: field may resolve to. E.g. ["openrouter"] blocks evil-provider/vendor/model. |

All numeric settings are validated within safe ranges; invalid values are silently dropped and a warning is logged. See source (config.ts) for exact bounds.

Skill model: translation

The model: field in a skill's frontmatter is translated through mapModel(rawModel, defaultProvider, allowedProviderPrefixes):

| Frontmatter model | Resolved gateway ID | | ----------------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | claude-3-7-sonnet | openrouter/anthropic/claude-3-7-sonnet | | anthropic/claude-3-5-haiku | openrouter/anthropic/claude-3-5-haiku | | openrouter/anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet | (unchanged — already fully qualified) | | (missing) | openrouter/anthropic/claude-3-5-sonnet (fallback)|

When allowedProviderPrefixes is set (e.g. ["openrouter"]), a fully-qualified model whose provider prefix isn't in the list throws DisallowedProviderError and execution is aborted. This prevents a malicious SKILL.md from routing requests to an untrusted provider.

Execution flow

1. Intercept — onUserInput matches ^/skill:([a-zA-Z0-9_-]+), swallows the input, and prevents Pi's default skill handler from running.
2. Locate & parse — looks for SKILL.md in .pi/skills/<name>/ first, then ~/.pi/agent/skills/<name>/. Frontmatter is parsed with gray-matter; only model: is honoured.
3. 2-pass Actor/Judge loop — drafts a {userGoal, constraints, knownContext} brief, scores it against a binary rubric, rewrites once if any boolean is false. Hard cap = 2 passes.
4. Q&A fallback — if the second pass still fails, the Judge's missingRequirementQuestion is posted to the user. The next typed message is intercepted via onBeforeMessage, appended to the brief as a clarification, and execution resumes.
5. Auggie pre-flight — auggie account status is spawned silently. Any non-zero exit aborts with [System Error]: Cannot execute skill. Augment daemon is offline or unauthenticated.
6. Execution model selection — the router computes the sub-agent model. When adaptive routing is disabled (default), this is the legacy mapModel(skill.rawModel, ...) path. When enabled, the Judge's executionRoute is combined with preference, safety floors, and the configured pool to select exactly one model. The selection is sticky for the entire run and never injected into the sub-agent prompt.
7. Sub-agent execution — the input editor is locked, a [System]: ⚙️ Executing … marker is posted, and an isolated Pi sub-agent runs at temperature: 0.0 with the auggie MCP attached over stdio. The sub-agent's prompt is appended with: "To gather context, you MUST strictly use the MCP tool named codebase-retrieval. Do not attempt to run auggie in the terminal." A structured route log is emitted at this point.
8. Overflow middleware — every auggie/codebase-retrieval response over 25 KB (configurable) is dropped and replaced with "Result too large. Please refine your codebase-retrieval query to be more specific."
9. Resolution — final sub-agent text is posted to the main thread, the editor is unlocked, the state machine resets to idle.

State machine

   idle ──/skill:──▶ evaluating ──pass──▶ executing ──done──▶ idle
                         │
                         └─fail×2─▶ waitingForUser ──answer──▶ executing

Only one skill can be in flight at a time. New /skill: commands while busy get a [System]: Router busy warning.

Operational defaults

| Knob | Default | Why | | ------------------------- | -------------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------- | | Routing engine | anthropic/claude-3-5-haiku | Cheap and Anthropic-aligned for routing. | | History window | 20 messages | Enough for context, not enough to drown the brief. | | Total timeout | 300 s | Hard kill prevents runaway billing. | | MCP inactivity timeout | 60 s | Stops OpenRouter loops when a model hangs. | | Sub-agent temperature | 0.0 | Mandatory for rigid tool usage. | | Overflow ceiling | 25 000 B | Forces query refinement, not context dumping. | | Auggie binary path | "auggie" | Relies on $PATH by default; override for security.| | Allowed provider prefixes | [] (allow all) | Restrict to known providers to prevent model redirection. | | Adaptive routing | disabled | Backwards-compatible opt-in. | | Adaptive preference | balanced | Neutral cost-quality bias. | | Skill model policy | pin | Preserve existing SKILL.md model: behavior. | | Surface routing decision | false | Keep default UI minimal. |

Security model

Trust boundary: workspace filesystem

pi-auggie-router loads SKILL.md files from the workspace (.pi/skills/) and the user's home directory (~/.pi/agent/skills/). The markdown body of a skill file is injected verbatim into LLM prompts (routing model and sub-agent). This means:

• Any process that can write to .pi/skills/*/SKILL.md effectively controls the sub-agent's system prompt (prompt injection via filesystem).
• A malicious model: value in SKILL.md frontmatter can redirect execution to a different provider. Use allowedProviderPrefixes to restrict this.
• Do not commit SKILL.md files from untrusted sources without review.

Data sent to LLM providers

The routing model (claude-3-5-haiku by default) sees:

• The skill's markdown instructions.
• The last historyWindow chat messages (truncated to 10 000 chars each).
• Actor/Judge JSON payloads.
• Judge routing metadata requests/outputs, including executionRoute (tier, complexity, risk, confidence, reason).

The sub-agent does not receive route metadata in its system or user prompt; route decisions are surfaced only through host system messages and structured logs. If your chat may contain secrets, point routingModel at a self-hosted gateway or reduce historyWindow.

Path resolution

Skill names are validated against [a-zA-Z0-9_-]+ — no dots, slashes, or path traversal sequences. Error messages omit filesystem paths to prevent information leakage.

Sub-process spawning

The router spawns the auggie binary for pre-flight checks and as an MCP server. By default it relies on $PATH lookup; set auggieBinPath to an absolute path to eliminate this attack surface. stderr from auggie account status is redacted for common secret patterns (API keys, Bearer tokens, hex strings) before being surfaced in the UI.

Development

npm install
npm run build       # compile to dist/
npm run lint        # tsc --noEmit
npm test            # node --test via tsx loader

License

MIT