Pi for IDE — VS Code extension

Pi for IDE makes the Pi agent a native part of your editor: the session list is a real tree in the activity bar, chats and settings open as editor tabs, and file reviews run through native diffs — it looks and works like something the IDE shipped with, not a web app in a frame.

What you get

Pi Sessions sidebar (activity bar)

The Pi Sessions view in the activity bar — a native session tree and the entry point to everything:

• Free layout: like every activity-bar view, drag it anywhere or merge it with other views.
• Workspace filter: toggle between current-workspace sessions and all sessions; sessions and projects from other workspaces can be opened in their own workspace window.
• Grouped by project (or a flat Recent mode), with live running / awaiting input icons; projects and sessions can be pinned to the top.
• Session meta: last-active time and message count shown in the tree, so the session you want is easy to spot — switch between a trailing inline layout and a two-line layout.
• Collapse All / Expand All: handy when projects and sessions pile up.
• Session actions: open, open in the full page, rename, pin, archive, fork, delete, copy title, copy workspace path — plus directory actions: reveal in Explorer, open the workspace in a new window, open in an integrated terminal.
• Project actions: new session, rename, pin, copy path, edit the project's .pi/settings.json.
• Cross-workspace jumps: send a session from another workspace to its own window in one click.
• Awaiting input: sessions waiting on you get a badge in the tree, a status-bar count that cycles to the next one when clicked, and an optional toast.
• Settings entry: open the global settings page; edit a project's .pi/settings.json.
• Drafts survive: unsent text in the composer survives server restarts and window reloads.

Session tabs (editor area)

Sessions open as editor tabs, on equal footing with your code files:

• A tab per session (perSession) or one shared tab (shared) — Pi for IDE.sessionTabs.
• Many sessions in parallel: every session gets its own tab — spread as many as you like across the editor, freely mixed with file tabs.
• The full chat experience: streaming output, tool-call detail, branch navigation, full-history / system / tools / token-usage views, themes and multi-language UI — laid out to feel at home in the IDE.
• Tab context menu: reveal the session in the tree, copy its workspace path, reload the page.
• Survives reloads and updates: after a window reload or extension update, session tabs keep their titles and restore in place.
• The + button on file-editor title bars: start a new session in the workspace of the file you're reading, in one click.

Editor integration

• @ mentions: type @ in the composer and pick workspace files — powered by VS Code's own file search.
• Right-click mentions: Mention This File / Mention This Code on editor and Explorer context menus.
• Active-file awareness: the file you're viewing quietly enters the agent's context, with a hint in the composer so you always know which file it's looking at.
• Clipboard parity: copy/paste inside the panel behaves like everywhere else in the editor.
• IDE shortcuts stay live: chords the app doesn't consume (Ctrl/Alt combos, F-keys) fall through to VS Code's own keybinding service — your keybindings and when clauses apply as usual.

File review and revert

After each turn, a File review card lists the files the agent touched:

• Native two-sided diff (the VS Code diff editor) — even for files the agent edited outside the session's own folder.
• Open file in editor.
• One-click revert: files return to their pre-turn state and the turn's conversation entries are removed; reverting a middle turn never loses later turns. Always confirmed first.

Settings tab

• Settings page: a complete, native-feeling settings surface — models and API keys, OAuth, MCP, skills, plugins, themes — all configured in-panel, sharing ~/.pi/agent/ with the pi CLI.
• Curated models: mark your usual models to trim the model list shown in the chat UI.

System features

• Server component updates: automatically checks for new versions against both a local folder and the npm registry, and shows a source / version / build-stamp comparison.
• Shared server instance: multiple windows and browser tabs connect to the same server — a single view of sessions and configuration, no duplicate processes.
• Self-managing server: can start with the editor; a server the extension spawned exits on its own after every window and page has been disconnected for a quiet period — manually started servers are never managed.

Screenshots

• Settings page

Adds an enabled-models section.

• Session tree view menu

• Session tree project menu

• Session tree session menu

• Session tree embedded in another view

• F1 command list

Commands

Session and project actions (open, rename, pin, archive, fork, delete, directory and window routing, workspace filter) live on the Pi Sessions view's context menu; the view title bar offers new-session, workspace-filter, single/two-line layout toggle, and collapse/expand-all buttons, while the "…" menu holds refresh, grouped/recent switch, Open Original Page, settings, and the workspace .pi/settings.json. Session-tab context menus offer Reveal in Sessions / Copy Workspace Path / Reload Page.

Settings

Usage notes

• The server manages itself: a server started by the extension exits after autoStopAfterSec (default 5 minutes) once every window and page disconnects; an open browser tab counts as in-use. For a long-lived server, start one manually with pi-web-for-ide — those are never auto-stopped.
• Shutdown protection: a stop request is refused while another window's panel is still connected — closing your window never kills the server out from under a sibling. This is intentional.
• Upgrades: when a newer package exists, a toast shows the full comparison (source, version, build stamp) with a one-click Install and Details… for the table; if a server is running you're asked to restart first, so nothing half-installs.
• Your own instance: set Pi for IDE.port outside 3030–3039 — this window then starts/connects to a separate server on its own port instead of joining the shared instance on the default range (panels on that port still share that one server).
• Want the full page: the panel defaults to an IDE-fitting slim shell; Pi for IDE: Open Original Page (also on the sidebar title menu) opens the untrimmed interface, and Open in Browser opens the same thing in your browser.
• Revert's safety line: revert only restores files the turn wrote; files you manually edited after the turn are skipped with a notice instead of being overwritten.
• Same data, two fronts: the same server serves the panel and your browser — Open in Browser opens the same sessions and configuration.

Troubleshooting

Panel blank, stuck on the loading notice, or upgrades not arriving? Walk this ladder — every step is safe and self-contained:

1. Reload the panel — tab context menu → Pi for IDE: Reload.
2. Restart the server — Pi for IDE: Stop Server, then Pi for IDE: Start. The server is shared across windows; if others still use it you'll be asked to confirm.
3. Reload the window — Developer: Reload Window rebuilds the extension host and every webview.
4. Reinstall the managed runtime — stop the server first, then delete <user-data>/globalStorage/williamstone.pi-for-ide/runtime (e.g. %APPDATA%\VSCodium\User\globalStorage\… or %APPDATA%\Code\User\globalStorage\…). On next start the extension re-resolves installSource and installs a fresh copy. Never delete version folders while a server is running.
5. Reset settings — remove all Pi for IDE.* keys from settings.json; a stale localPackage or executablePath pointing at a moved file is a common culprit.
6. Reinstall the extension — uninstall, reload, reinstall.

Sessions and history live in ~/.pi under your home folder — none of these steps touch them.

Still stuck? File an issue: https://github.com/WilliamStone/Pi-for-IDE/issues

Upstream & credits

• pi (earendil-works): the underlying coding agent.
• pi-web (agegr): the Next.js web UI for pi — the interface the panel hosts.
• pi-code (wangjinxin613): the original IDE integration — the extension, embed bridge, file review/revert, and active-file injection all originate there; this extension is rebuilt on that work.
• Pi-for-IDE (this repo): what this project adds on top of pi-code:
  • Native Pi Sessions tree (activity bar): by-project / recent modes, single- and two-line meta layouts, a collapse/expand-all two-state button, workspace filter, awaiting badges, cross-workspace jumps.
  • Split tab system: sessions, composer, and settings each get their own tabs (perSession); lazy placeholder restore across window reloads and extension updates; tab context actions and full-page reload.
  • Multi-window / multi-tab concurrency groundwork: extension-side SSE event proxy (works around the webview connection-pool ceiling), shared server instance and instance coordination, server auto start/stop, embed lifecycle protocol evolution.
  • Server management: version checks and upgrades against both a local folder and the npm registry, local-package install source.
  • Project-level config: .pi/settings.json editing, per-project enabled-model lists, composer drafts that survive restarts.
  • Independent distribution: the @william_stone/pi-web-for-ide npm package and this extension, no longer released as one bundle.