pi-claude-shimmer

Claude Code-style working spinner for Pi — shimmer, thinking glow, token count, stall detection, and smooth animations.

Why

Pi's built-in working indicator is functional but minimal. pi-claude-shimmer brings the same polished spinner experience from Claude Code to your Pi sessions:

• Verb shimmer — The verb text has a moving color sweep (shimmer), with different speed and direction depending on whether Pi is sending a request or receiving a response
• Thinking timer — Detects when the model is thinking, shows a glowing "thinking" label with a sine-wave shimmer (3s delay, like Claude Code), then transitions to "thought for Ns"
• Token count — Live ↓ N tokens with smooth counter animation (no jumps)
• Elapsed time — Appears after 30s alongside the thinking/token status
• Stall detection — After 3s without new tokens, the verb smoothly transitions to red via color interpolation (not a hard binary switch)
• Tool-use flash — When tools are executing, the entire verb text oscillates between base and shimmer colors (sine wave)
• Spinner ping-pong — The spinner characters animate forward then backward (· ✢ ✳ ✶ ✻ ✽ ✻ ✶ ✳ ✢), matching Claude Code's animation
• Completion notification — Shows a brief ✻ Brewed for Ns notification when the agent finishes

Install

pi install npm:pi-claude-shimmer

Or install from GitHub:

pi install git:github.com/ouzhenkun/pi-claude-shimmer

Usage

No configuration needed — the extension works automatically once installed. Just use Pi as normal.

States

· Building…                                     ← requesting (no status yet)
✢ Crafting…  (thinking with high effort)        ← thinking (< 3s, no glow)
✳ Crafting…  (↓ 127 tokens · thinking)          ← thinking with tokens
✶ Cooking…   (↓ 1,234 tokens)                   ← responding (< 30s)
✻ Crunching… (32s · ↓ 3,678 tokens)             ← responding after 30s
✽ Brewing…   (1m 3s · ↓ 4,567 tokens)           ← tool-use (flash animation)
✻ Crunched for 2m 5s                            ← completion (notify)

Features at a Glance

| Feature | Description | |---------|-------------| | Verb shimmer | Moving color sweep on verb text | | Request/respond arrows | ↑ when sending, ↓ when receiving | | Thinking glow | Sine-wave shimmer on "thinking" text after 3s | | Token counter | Smooth animated ↓ N tokens | | Elapsed timer | Duration shown after 30s | | Tool-use flash | Verb oscillates between colors during tool execution | | Stall detection | Verb smoothly transitions to red after 3s without tokens | | Spinner ping-pong | Characters animate forward then backward | | Completion notify | Past-tense verb notification on finish |

Dependencies

• @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent (peer)

License

MIT