pi-powerline-footer

Customizes the default pi editor with a powerline-style status bar, welcome overlay, and AI-generated "vibes" for loading messages. Inspired by Powerlevel10k and oh-my-pi.

Features

Editor stash — Press Alt+S to save your editor content and clear the editor, type a quick prompt, and your stashed text auto-restores when the agent finishes. Toggles between stash, pop, and update-existing-stash. A 📋 stash indicator appears in the powerline bar while text is stashed.

Working Vibes — AI-generated themed loading messages. Set /vibe star trek and your "Working..." becomes "Running diagnostics..." or "Engaging warp drive...". Supports any theme: pirate, zen, noir, cowboy, etc.

Welcome overlay — Branded splash screen shown as centered overlay on startup. Shows gradient logo, model info, keyboard tips, loaded AGENTS.md/extensions/skills/templates counts, and recent sessions. Auto-dismisses after 30 seconds or on any key press.

Rounded box design — Status renders directly in the editor's top border, not as a separate footer.

Live thinking level indicator — Shows current thinking level (thinking:off, thinking:med, etc.) with color-coded gradient. High and xhigh levels get a rainbow shimmer effect inspired by Claude Code's ultrathink.

Smart defaults — Nerd Font auto-detection for iTerm, WezTerm, Kitty, Ghostty, and Alacritty with ASCII fallbacks. Colors matched to oh-my-pi's dark theme.

Git integration — Async status fetching with 1s cache TTL. Automatically invalidates on file writes/edits. Shows branch, staged (+), unstaged (*), and untracked (?) counts.

Context awareness — Color-coded warnings at 70% (yellow) and 90% (red) context usage. Auto-compact indicator when enabled.

Token intelligence — Smart formatting (1.2k, 45M), subscription detection (shows "(sub)" vs dollar cost).

Installation

pi install npm:pi-powerline-footer

Restart pi to activate.

Usage

Activates automatically. Toggle with /powerline, switch presets with /powerline <name>.

| Preset | Description | |--------|-------------| | default | Model, thinking, path (basename), git, context, tokens, cost | | minimal | Just path (basename), git, context | | compact | Model, git, cost, context | | full | Everything including hostname, time, abbreviated path | | nerd | Maximum detail for Nerd Font users | | ascii | Safe for any terminal |

Environment: POWERLINE_NERD_FONTS=1 to force Nerd Fonts, =0 for ASCII.

Preset selection is saved to ~/.pi/agent/settings.json under powerline and restored on startup. Run /powerline default to switch back to the default preset.

Editor Stash

Use Alt+S as a quick stash toggle while drafting. It keeps one active stash and clears the editor when stashing.

| Editor | Stash | Alt+S result | |--------|-------|----------------| | Has text | Empty | Stash current text, clear editor | | Empty | Has stash | Restore stash into editor | | Has text | Has stash | Update stash with current text, clear editor | | Empty | Empty | Show "Nothing to stash" |

Auto-restore after an agent run only happens when the editor is still empty. If you typed meanwhile, the stash is preserved.

The 📋 stash indicator appears in the powerline bar (on presets with extension_statuses). Active stash is still session-local and resets on session switch / disable, but stash history is persisted to ~/.pi/agent/powerline-footer/stash-history.json so it survives restarts.

Stash history

Open stash history with either:

• ctrl+alt+h
• /stash-history

History keeps up to 12 recent stashed prompts (newest first). Selecting an entry inserts it into the editor. If the editor already has text, you can choose Replace, Append, or Cancel.

Editor clipboard shortcuts

• ctrl+alt+c — copy full editor content
• ctrl+alt+x — cut full editor content (copy, then clear)

Copy/cut actions do not modify stash state or stash history.

Shortcut configuration

You can override shortcut keys in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json:

{
  "powerlineShortcuts": {
    "stashHistory": "ctrl+alt+h",
    "copyEditor": "ctrl+alt+c",
    "cutEditor": "ctrl+alt+x",
    "profileCycle": "alt+shift+tab",
    "profileSelect": "ctrl+alt+m"
  }
}

After changing bindings, run /reload. Invalid bindings, reserved key conflicts (like Alt+S), or duplicate conflicts automatically fall back to safe defaults.

Model Profiles

Model profiles are saved model + thinking combinations stored in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json:

{
  "modelProfiles": [
    { "model": "anthropic/claude-opus-4.6", "thinking": "xhigh", "label": "Opus Deep" },
    { "model": "openai/codex-5.3", "thinking": "low", "label": "Codex Fast" },
    { "model": "google/gemini-3-pro", "thinking": "medium" }
  ]
}

Shortcuts

• alt+shift+tab — cycle to the next profile
• ctrl+alt+m — open profile selector overlay

Both bindings are configurable via powerlineShortcuts.profileCycle and powerlineShortcuts.profileSelect.

/model-switcher command

/model-switcher                                          — open profiles overlay (select to switch)
/model-switcher add                                      — interactive picker (model → thinking → label)
/model-switcher add <model> <thinking> [label...]        — direct add
/model-switcher remove <number>                          — remove by number
/model-switcher <number>                                 — switch to profile

/model-switcher opens the same profile selector overlay as ctrl+alt+m. Use ↑↓ to move, enter to switch, and esc to close. Active profile is marked in the list. /model-switcher add with no arguments opens an interactive flow: pick a model from available models with fuzzy search, pick a thinking level, then optionally enter a label. With arguments, it adds directly. remove and switch persist immediately to settings.json.

Working Vibes

Transform boring "Working..." messages into themed phrases that match your style:

/vibe star trek    → "Running diagnostics...", "Engaging warp drive..."
/vibe pirate       → "Hoisting the sails...", "Charting course..."
/vibe zen          → "Breathing deeply...", "Finding balance..."
/vibe noir         → "Following the trail...", "Checking the angles..."
/vibe              → Shows current theme, mode, and model
/vibe off          → Disables (back to "Working...")
/vibe model        → Shows current model
/vibe model openai/gpt-4o-mini → Use a different model
/vibe mode         → Shows current mode (generate or file)
/vibe mode file    → Switch to file-based mode (instant, no API calls)
/vibe mode generate → Switch to on-demand generation (contextual)
/vibe generate mafia 200 → Pre-generate 200 vibes and save to file

Configuration

In ~/.pi/agent/settings.json:

{
  "workingVibe": "star trek",                              // Theme phrase
  "workingVibeMode": "generate",                           // "generate" (on-demand) or "file" (pre-generated)
  "workingVibeModel": "anthropic/claude-haiku-4-5",        // Optional: model to use (default)
  "workingVibeFallback": "Working",                        // Optional: fallback message
  "workingVibeRefreshInterval": 30,                        // Optional: seconds between refreshes (default 30)
  "workingVibePrompt": "Generate a {theme} loading message for: {task}",  // Optional: custom prompt template
  "workingVibeMaxLength": 65                         // Optional: max message length (default 65)
}

Modes

| Mode | Description | Pros | Cons | |------|-------------|------|------| | generate | On-demand AI generation (default) | Contextual, hints at actual task | ~$0.000015/msg, 500ms latency | | file | Pull from pre-generated file | Instant, zero cost, works offline | Not contextual |

File mode setup:

/vibe generate mafia 200    # Generate 200 vibes, save to ~/.pi/agent/vibes/mafia.txt
/vibe mode file             # Switch to file mode
/vibe mafia                 # Now uses the file

How file mode works:

1. Vibes are loaded from ~/.pi/agent/vibes/{theme}.txt into memory
2. Uses seeded shuffle (Mulberry32 PRNG) — cycles through all vibes before repeating
3. New seed each session — different order every time you restart pi
4. Zero latency, zero cost, works offline

Prompt template variables (generate mode only):

• {theme} — the current vibe theme (e.g., "star trek", "mafia")
• {task} — context hint (user prompt initially, then agent's response text or tool info on refresh)
• {exclude} — recent vibes to avoid (auto-populated, e.g., "Don't use: vibe1, vibe2...")

How it works:

1. When you send a message, shows "Channeling {theme}..." placeholder
2. AI generates a themed message in the background (3s timeout)
3. Message updates to the themed version (e.g., "Engaging warp drive...")
4. During long tasks, refreshes on tool calls (rate-limited, default 30s)
5. Cost: ~$0.000015 per generation (60 tokens @ haiku pricing)

Thinking Level Display

The thinking segment shows live updates when you change thinking level:

| Level | Display | Color | |-------|---------|-------| | off | thinking:off | gray | | minimal | thinking:min | purple-gray | | low | thinking:low | blue | | medium | thinking:med | teal | | high | thinking:high | 🌈 rainbow | | xhigh | thinking:xhigh | 🌈 rainbow |

Path Display

The path segment supports three modes:

| Mode | Example | Description | |------|---------|-------------| | basename | powerline-footer | Just the directory name (default) | | abbreviated | …/extensions/powerline-footer | Full path with home abbreviated and length limit | | full | ~/.pi/agent/extensions/powerline-footer | Complete path with home abbreviated |

Configure via preset options: path: { mode: "full" }

Segments

pi · model · thinking · path · git · subagents · token_in · token_out · token_total · cost · context_pct · context_total · time_spent · time · session · hostname · cache_read · cache_write

Separators

powerline · powerline-thin · slash · pipe · dot · chevron · star · block · none · ascii

Theming

Colors are configurable via pi's theme system. Each preset defines its own color scheme, and you can override individual colors with a theme.json file in the extension directory.

Default Colors

| Semantic | Theme Color | Description | |----------|-------------|-------------| | pi | accent | Pi icon | | model | #d787af | Model name | | path | #00afaf | Directory path | | gitClean | success | Git branch (clean) | | gitDirty | warning | Git branch (dirty) | | thinking | muted | Thinking level | | context | dim | Context usage | | contextWarn | warning | Context usage >70% | | contextError | error | Context usage >90% | | cost | text | Cost display | | tokens | muted | Token counts |

Custom Theme Override

Create ~/.pi/agent/extensions/powerline-footer/theme.json:

{
  "colors": {
    "pi": "#ff5500",
    "model": "accent",
    "path": "#00afaf",
    "gitClean": "success"
  }
}

Colors can be:

• Theme color names: accent, muted, dim, text, success, warning, error, border, borderAccent, borderMuted
• Hex colors: #ff5500, #d787af

See theme.example.json for all available options.