pi-context-usage

A pi extension package that adds:

• /context — a dot-grid visualization of current context usage
• /context details — a deeper breakdown of system prompt, active tools, and conversation turns
• /release <major|minor|patch> — the repository release workflow

Usage

Context summary

/context

Shows a dot-grid summary with five breakdown categories:

Context Usage

◍ ⚙ ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
● ● ● ● · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · · · · · ·
· · · · · · ○ ○ ○ ○ ○

claude-sonnet-4-5   31.4k / 200.0k tokens (16%)

◍ System Prompt:    1.7k (1%)
⚙ Tools:              275 (0%)
● Messages:        29.4k (15%)
· Empty:           152.2k (76%)
○ Buffer:           16.4k (8%)

Context details

/context details

When UI is available, this opens a keyboard-driven overlay that keeps the grid summary at the top and adds expandable sections for:

• System Prompt — visible system prompt token estimate from ctx.getSystemPrompt()
• Tools — active tool breakdown from pi.getAllTools() filtered by pi.getActiveTools()
• Conversation — one line per user turn, plus inline compaction summaries and per-message drill-down

Keyboard shortcuts in the overlay:

• ↑/↓ move focus
• Enter or → expand a section/row
• ← collapse a section/row
• Tab jump between top-level sections
• PageUp/PageDown, Home/End scroll faster
• Esc or q close

When UI is not available, /context details falls back to a plain-text dump.

Example plain-text output:

System / Tools Details

Item                Tokens  Chars
System prompt         6.2k  24,800
read                    70     279
bash                    61     244
edit                   142     567
Total visible parts    6.5k  25,890

Note: visible parts sum to 2.2k tokens, while the top summary uses 14.3k cached prompt tokens from the last assistant cache. That cache number includes provider-side scaffolding and cached context that extensions cannot inspect.

Conversation (6 turns)
Per-turn and cumulative values are visible-entry estimates from estimateTokens(message); they will not match the summary's provider/cache totals.

 #1  10:00  U  Can you inspect the repo and summarize how /context currently works?      55      55 cum est
 #2  10:01  U  Now sketch a plan for a /context details mode with a deeper breakdown.      36      91 cum est
  Σ  10:06  Σ  Earlier discussion established the design…      38     197 cum est
 #3  10:10  U  Add the system prompt and active-tools breakdown next.      65     262 cum est

Install

As a pi package

pi install git:github.com/championswimmer/pi-context-usage

Manual (project-local)

Copy or symlink this directory into .pi/extensions/pi-context-usage/.

Development

# Load extension directly into a live pi session
pi -e ./src/index.ts

# After sending at least one message
/context
/context details

# Standalone mock tests
bun run test:mock
bun run test:mock-details

How it works

Summary buckets

| Category | Symbol | Theme color | Token source | |--------------|--------|-------------|--------------| | System Prompt | ◍ | accent | Math.ceil(systemPrompt.length / 4) — estimated from visible system prompt text | | Tools | ⚙ | muted | Sum of Math.ceil((name + description + JSON.stringify(parameters)).length / 4) over active tools | | Messages | ● | success | usedTokens - systemPromptTokens - toolTokens — conversation entries | | Empty | · | dim | contextWindow - usedTokens - bufferTokens — unused space | | Buffer | ○ | warning | model.maxTokens — reserved for model output |

All visible estimates use a chars / 4 heuristic. The grid distributes cells proportionally across the five categories.

Details view estimates

• System prompt tokens: Math.ceil(systemPrompt.length / 4)
• Per-tool tokens: Math.ceil((name + description).length / 4) + Math.ceil(JSON.stringify(parameters).length / 4)
• Turn tokens: summed via pi's exported estimateTokens(message) heuristic

Because pi does not expose the exact provider-serialized request payload, the visible system prompt + tools total is intentionally labeled as an approximation. The cache-provided number in details remains the authoritative cached-prompt value, and it is not directly comparable to the visible estimates.

Release automation

/release patch
/release minor
/release major

The /release command will:

• verify the git working tree is clean
• run npm run test:mock
• bump package.json and package-lock.json
• create a release: vX.Y.Z commit
• publish to npm
• create a vX.Y.Z git tag
• push the branch and tag to GitHub

Prerequisites:

• you are on the branch you want to release from
• you can push to the repository remote
• npm whoami succeeds for an account that can publish pi-context-usage

Release skill

This package also ships a release skill that teaches pi when and how to use the repo's release flow. If the skill is loaded manually, it will direct the agent to prefer:

/release major|minor|patch