pi-runway

The editor's frame tells you everything — and nothing you don't need.

An editor frame for pi. The top edge shows where you are and which model you're talking to. The bottom edge is your context: it fills up like a runway. The frame's color and motion tell you whose turn it is. It replaces pi's footer, so you get those rows back for the conversation.

Install

pi install npm:pi-runway

There is nothing to configure.

To get pi's own footer and editor back for a while, run /runway (or /runway off, /runway on). The choice lasts until pi exits.

Reading it

╭─ pi-footer  ⎇ feat/x* ─────────────────────── esc to interrupt ── ◆ Sonnet 4.5 high ─╮
│ make it pop█                                                                          │
╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╍╍╍╍────────── 78%  ≈4 turns  $1.20 ─╯

Top edge

| | | |---|---| | pi-footer | Repo name, plus the subdirectory if you're in one (pi-footer/src). Outside git: the folder name. | | ⎇ feat/x | Git branch. Its presence also tells you the folder is a repo. | | * | Uncommitted changes. | | mcp 3 | Status text from other extensions (ctx.ui.setStatus()). | | esc to interrupt | Only while the agent works: the one thing you can do then. | | ◆ Sonnet 4.5 high | The model, followed by the thinking level, both in the level's color (the same color pi gives the editor border). Models that can't think show no level. A provider prefix appears only when the same model is available from more than one provider. A routed virtual model shows as auto → model. |

Bottom edge

| | | |---|---| | ━━━━━━ | Context used. Cool colors while there's room, warmer as it fills. | | ╍╍╍╍ | From 70%: how much the next prompt will probably use. | | 78% | Context used. Dim below 70%, yellow from 70%, red from 90%. | | ≈4 turns | From 70%: prompts left before the window is full, from how much your last three prompts grew it. | | $1.20 | Session cost, pay-per-token only. Hidden on subscriptions and when there is no price. |

The frame itself

| | | |---|---| | Thinking-level color, still | Idle. Your turn. | | A light running along the top | The agent is working — however long it takes. | | Yellow, with ● | An extension is waiting for your answer. | | Red, with ✗ | The last run failed. Stays until your next prompt. |

pi's own retry and compaction messages show as usual.

Design rules

• Color only for signals. Everything is quiet until something needs you.
• Your theme's colors. Every color comes from the active pi theme.
• No Nerd Font needed. Only standard Unicode symbols.
• Works with every provider. Nothing that only some providers report.
• Graceful when narrow. Things step aside one at a time; the context reading and the run-state mark always stay.
• Fast. Nothing is computed while you type. The frame is built from cached strings; session data is read on events (end of a message, end of a run, compaction, model change), and git only after a tool may have touched files.

Development

bun install
bun run link-pi      # symlink the host-provided pi packages for type checking
bun run check        # tsc + bun test
pi -ne -e ./index.ts # try it in isolation