pi-minimum-sufficient-output

Minimum sufficient output for pi, in two parts:

• Transcript: one line per tool call, full output on ctrl+o.
• Responses: a minimum-sufficient-output policy added to pi's system prompt, so the model answers first and leaves out what the reader does not need (see Response policy).

pi install npm:pi-minimum-sufficient-output

Or in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json: "packages": ["npm:pi-minimum-sufficient-output"].

  read   src/foo.sh:40–70                                    ✓
  read   lib/util.ts  (214 lines)                             ✓
  edit   bar.sh  +15 −20                                      ✓
  edit   3 files  +42 −8                                      ✓
  write  new.ts  (120 lines)                                  ✓
  run    pnpm typecheck  exit 2 · src/a.ts(3,1): error TS2304… ✗
  find   rg "x" src  12 hits                                  ✓
  web    search "q" ×4  24 results                       6.2s ✓
  spawn  backend · claude-opus·high  root.3                   ✓
  send   → parent                                             ✓

  1m 33s · model 1m 20s ×7 · tools 13.0s ×12

Rows are colored by role, not dimmed as a whole: verb muted, target in text color, result muted (+ green, − red, a failure's text red), duration muted. The status mark (✓ green, ✗ red, ◌ yellow while running) and the duration are right-aligned, at most 100 columns from the row start, and rows are indented two columns so they read as steps under the model's text. Press ctrl+o (or click a row) to expand: every row then shows the tool's own full view, exactly as without this package.

What it does

It is display only. It uses pi.registerToolRenderer to wrap the renderers of every tool — the built-ins, pi-multiedit's edit/read, MCP tools, pi-actors' spawn/send/stop, pi-web-access tools, and tools it has never heard of. No tool is registered or changed, so the model receives exactly what it did before.

| Tool | Line | |---|---| | read | path and the range actually read (:40–70, (of 5000) when truncated); whole file: (214 lines) | | edit | path or N files, +added −removed from the diff (built-in details.diff and pi-multiedit details.files) | | write | path and line count | | bash | first line of the command (heredoc → cmd <<…), ✓ duration; on failure ✗ exit N · <first error-looking line> | | grep / find / ls | rg "pattern" path → hits, files, entries | | web_search / fetch_content / … | query or URL, result count or title | | mcp__server__tool | server.tool and the first meaningful argument | | spawn / send / stop | name · model·thinking; → target; id | | anything else | tool name, first meaningful argument, ✓/✗ |

Rules: file contents, diffs and command output are never shown collapsed, except one line on a failure. Durations appear for successful calls that took at least 1s. A leading cd <dir> && is left out of run lines (expand to see the full command). Paths are relative to the working directory, with your home as ~. Lines are cut to the terminal width, the target first so the result stays visible. If a tool's arguments or result have an unexpected shape, the row falls back to the generic line; a renderer error falls back to the tool's own view.

Spacing

pi draws a blank line above every tool row. For collapsed rows this package removes it, so a run of tool calls is a block of consecutive lines. That is a small, guarded patch of pi's ToolExecutionComponent.render; set PI_MSO_TRANSCRIPT_SPACING=1 to keep pi's spacing. Set PI_MSO_TRANSCRIPT=0 to disable the transcript part without uninstalling it.

Run timing

After each agent run, one line shows where the time went: total, model calls (request start to the end of the reply, with the call count) and tools (wall time with at least one tool running, so parallel calls count once). It is a custom session entry (mso-timing), kept in the session and never sent to the model. Set PI_MSO_TIMING=0 to stop recording it; lines already recorded still show.

Response policy

The package ships policy/mso-policy.md and adds it to pi's system prompt as an <mso_policy> section on every before_agent_start. It changes a section of pi's structured prompt (systemPromptOptions.sections) rather than replacing the whole prompt, so pi records it as a normal prompt delta.

No duplicates: if the system prompt already contains the policy's managed-block marker (BEGIN MANAGED BLOCK: mso-policy) — for example because your ~/.pi/agent/APPEND_SYSTEM.md or a project .pi/APPEND_SYSTEM.md includes it — the section is not added. Your copy wins, whatever its version.

Set PI_MSO_POLICY=0 to turn the policy off. The transcript renderer is unaffected; likewise PI_MSO_TRANSCRIPT=0 turns off only the transcript part.

Development

npm install
npm test            # node --experimental-strip-types --test
npx tsc --noEmit
pi -e ./index.ts    # try it without installing

The formatting is pure (src/format.ts, no pi imports) and unit-tested; src/render.ts turns it into pi components and handles expansion. src/policy.ts decides whether to add the policy section (pure, tested in test/policy.test.ts).

License

MIT