pipane

A clean web interface for the pi coding agent. Open any pi conversation in pipane, open any pipane conversation in pi -- full interop.

pipane runs a local backend that launches pi in RPC mode and streams agent messages to a browser UI over WebSocket.

Walkthrough

Hero shot:

Walkthrough (GIF):

Quickstarts

Requires Node.js 22.19 or newer, matching the bundled Pi runtime and extension APIs.

npm install -g pipane

If pi is missing, install it like this:

npm install -g @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent

Run pipane to start the backend. It registers with https://pipane.dev by default and uses the machine's short hostname as its backend name, so no remote-access environment variables are required. Set PIPANE_BACKEND_NAME to customize the name, PIPANE_RENDEZVOUS_URL to use another rendezvous service, or set PIPANE_RENDEZVOUS_URL to an empty value to disable remote registration.

Authorize the first browser by running pipane pair and opening its short-lived link or scanning its QR code. From an authorized pipane.dev workspace, use the workspace-wide Add device button beside Pipane settings to create a one-use, ten-minute QR code and link. The new browser receives access to the same account backends without transferring the original browser's private key.

If rendezvous can reach an online backend but WebRTC cannot find a direct ICE path, Pipane offers browser-local TURN relay settings from the recovery screen, connection diagnostics, pairing page, and host menu. The guided setup supports Metered Open Relay, a publicly reachable self-hosted coturn server using REST shared-secret credentials, or standard static iceServers JSON from another provider. Long-term Metered keys and coturn shared secrets remain in that browser; Pipane forwards only temporary TURN credentials for each connection. TURN relays encrypted WebRTC traffic but can still observe endpoint IP addresses, timing, and traffic volume.

Explicit local deployments

Deploy the current working tree to the separate dev instance with:

npm run deploy:dev

This builds a release, atomically advances the pipane-dev systemd service, and verifies it on port 8223. It does not change production.

To try the same working-tree change through the public site without publishing npm, deploy a preview stack:

npm run deploy:preview

This starts a detached pipane-preview-deploy systemd unit and deploys a matching, isolated stack: the local pipane-dev backend plus the rendezvous server and browser at https://preview.pipane.dev. Detaching lets the workflow survive the local backend restart; follow it with journalctl -u pipane-preview-deploy -f. The remote runtime is installed from the working-tree build without publishing or globally installing npm, uses separate rendezvous trust state, and rolls back atomically if its service, health endpoint, or browser checksum fails. Production pipane.dev and the local production backend remain untouched. Override the deployment target with PIPANE_PREVIEW_RENDEZVOUS_HOST, PIPANE_PREVIEW_RENDEZVOUS_ROOT, or PIPANE_PREVIEW_PUBLIC_URL when needed.

Deploy the current committed working tree to local production with:

npm run deploy:prod

Production deployment requires a clean Git working tree, atomically advances the pipane systemd service, verifies it on port 8222, and rolls back if the health check fails. Both commands skip dependency installation when package-lock.json is unchanged and retain five releases.

journalctl -u pipane-dev -f
journalctl -u pipane -f

What you get

• Session list and clean UI for pi
• Real-time tool calls and streaming output, nicely crafted
• One recency-sorted cross-host project picker on pipane.dev
• ChatGPT/Codex and Claude subscription usage in the input toolbar
• A large amount high quality "vibe-code".

Provider usage is supplied by the bundled @sreetej510/pi-usage Pi extension and uses Pi's existing authentication. Set PIPANE_USAGE_EXTENSION=0 when starting pipane to disable it.

Browser UI ownership

The renderer tree under src/client/ui/ is maintained directly by pipane. It is derived from the final pi-mono web-ui release (v0.75.3) with pipane's flat message renderer, steering editor, thinking display, attachment handling, and tool renderers integrated into one local path. Pipane does not patch or load an external pi-web-ui package. See UPSTREAM.md and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.

The versioned browser WebSocket contract and validated Pi subprocess boundary are documented in docs/protocol.md.

Testing

Run the complete local verification gate with:

npm run test:all

This typechecks the repository, runs Vitest with coverage thresholds, builds the production client/server, and runs the deterministic Playwright suite. The real-credential walkthrough is separate: npm run test:walkthrough.

License

MIT