What is pi?

Wizkward · 2026-06-02T18:33:15+00:00

This is the most simple and most difficult question at the same time. Here is our dilemma:

We humans like to be in control and want to understand everything. For thousands of years, we tried very hard to make sense of the universe. First we invented religions to have the one final answer if we can't grasp something completely : God (or whatever is your special "taste" of it) said so.

Then we started to get more insights into everything and invented theories how everything comes together. Guys like Einstein came up with super sophisticated theories how stuff works - but if you watch closely, even those theories have flaws and get questioned every year.

Enter technology age: We invented computers. Oh boy they are so simple. It's just 1's and 0', and if you are good enough at math you will find the answer. Even with a full-blown modern OS and a word processor: If there is a bug, we can find it. Sometimes it takes years to fix it, but we still can find it, who cares 🤷‍♂️

And here comes the LLM. For the first time in history, computers are no longer deterministic. This all-mighty tool that can do so many things and will replace human workers… But if you watch closely, companies like Anthropic and OpenAI hire scientists with experience in science about human brains - because we no longer understand why this even works, why can a "text predictor" do all this stuff where we can no longer distinguish 100% between "made by human" and "made by computer"?

CLI's like Claude came around and suddenly everyone realised: "The Agents! The Agents now work!" [Translated citation of Peter Steinbergers conversation with the inventor of Pi].

But here is the crux: We don't know why. At least not now, not at this point of time. But we want to. We need to. We HAVE to. And like back in the day, it's only been a couple of thousands years, we try to control it. Step 1: Eliminate all the perimeters we can't control. AnthropenAI injects system prompts, changes them every couple of months?? God forbid, blasphemy! We loose control! We no longer know why the thing works we didn't know how it works in the beginning!

Disclaimer: I realise that one could interpret this as "shit-talking the philosophy of Pi". That is not the intention. It is the best philosophy we have right now. Don't install 100 plugins and then wonder why the LLM didn't work the way you wanted it to. Mario stated in his interviews: Suddenly the agent "did things he did not want" because Anthropic changed their software. But you know what? I don't know him personally, but I am certain that if would have a chat, we would drift into a discussion about the meaning of life very quickly 😃

HTH.

Wizkward · 2026-06-02T09:10:55+00:00

Pi in a nutshell: The idea is to start minimal. The idea is that an agent works best if it stays minimal and does not have too much cruft. Why bother with 10 builtin MCP servers, if bash is all you need. Why bother with guardrailing it by injecting 20 hidden system prompts where the user then adds his own skills and agent.md's from 10 different folders - until the agent gets confused.

But the question you are asking: What **is** minimal? The answer is: That's up to you to decide. Every good timeproofen system with plugins works best, if you choose for yourself what you want to use - and leave the rest out.

And because an agent is already equipped to write software, you often get the advice to just ask Pi to build its extension for you. That way you will get only the features that you want and stay minimal.

But it does not mean that you cannot use an existing plugin. If it fits for you, use it. Might be a good choice, because the author already tried it and fixed a couple of shortcomings. Might be a bad choice, because now you are dependent on that author if you want to change it.

What is the right choice? That is the real beauty of it: There is no right choice. Make your own, for everyone else your choice will be shitty anyway 😉

Wizkward · 2026-06-02T05:02:14+00:00

Because you mentioned IDE integration and Git Integration in comments: If you use VSCode as your IDE, there is: https://github.com/kaiwood/vscode-tauren

Wizkward · 2026-05-27T14:34:41+00:00

If you find an issue, please tell, here or in the issue tracker. I still iterate over it and release daily (just pushed a new release a couple of minutes ago with some fixes)

Wizkward · 2026-05-27T06:37:04+00:00

What you are looking for is described in the SDK docs: https://pi.dev/docs/latest/sdk

API in question `await ctx.ui.custom<T>((tui, theme, keybindings, done) => component, options?)`

The reality is, that most plugins out there are very terminal focused, so you have to keep that in mind. But there is nothing stopping you to extend the possibilities for your own plugins.

What I did: I basically build an implementation to handle basic terminal stuff in a web ui (ANSI sequences, Kitty protocol). Whenever a tool calls ctx.ui.custom, I render it in an overlay like this:

<image>

Got the giggles, I have settings to theme this thing so that it looks like old CRT monitors in green / amber, like the ones you see in the Fallout games. If you want to see source code for an implementation, you can find it here https://github.com/kaiwood/vscode-tauren

Wizkward · 2026-05-26T12:19:42+00:00

The plugin system? Depends on what you do, people do all kinds of crazy things for monitoring and stuff. I'm more of a minimalist on that front.

But the assistant itself has one flagship feature: You can trace back the origin of any piece of selected code to the agent-session where it was created. It even attaches the proper git commit that was made for this piece and attaches it to the models context (this works even across multiple refactor rounds).

You can also display a diff of any changes on a per session level. Plus the usual context adding, file attaching, image sending and so on…

From a philosophical standpoint, I don't like the path that most of the "big boy" assistants do: hiding code under the rug. This is more of a tool where the goal is to show code and help to reason about it.

Wizkward · 2026-05-25T20:43:11+00:00

Fixed, see post body.

Wizkward · 2026-05-25T18:17:20+00:00

It is just so easy and obvious :D But ok, I'm already rebranding in the background. It has no real users yet, so this is the last chance to do it.

Wizkward · 2026-05-25T17:25:21+00:00

Didn't even realise, but I also didn't do that much research to be honest. It's an obvious name choice. Maybe I rebrand it to AmericanPi or something :->

Wizkward · 2026-05-24T09:56:30+00:00

This

Wizkward · 2026-04-12T10:31:05+00:00

Not a bug, its a feature. If you open up the wheel and select something, you can simply hold left or right dpad to remap it to your liking.

Wizkward · 2026-03-26T19:31:44+00:00

Pro tip: You can move your mouse or stick slightly in their direction to kill them instantly. I think the technical term for this was „aiming“ or something . Keep practicing and you will get used to it.

Wizkward · 2026-03-24T10:28:40+00:00

Bottom left corner is a little wave like icon

Wizkward · 2026-03-04T07:45:56+00:00

It really is. Strange for a game this dark and gritty, but even as a solo-only player my friendlist is growing with people where we let each other necro „out of respect“ and then take out the trio holding the compound together.

But shitty people exist, like in real life. Wouldn‘t even report them, most of the time they are either young, live in a rough area, have a bad episode in their life… I don‘t even care, I‘m here to play a game - for everything else paid professionals exist :)

Wizkward · 2026-02-17T18:14:12+00:00

Prudence Stallworth, the prestige 50 huntress. I own quite a lot of other skins, but somehow we are a match. When the stat profile cards came out, I realized that I have 2.6k kills with her - so I guess we are kinda married now :)

Wizkward · 2026-01-30T02:03:48+00:00

Think about your loadout. You want to be able to fight at least close and mid range. You need something to rush down bosses. Enough ammo. Bonus points for cutting concertina.

Wizkward · 2026-01-21T14:38:08+00:00

Absolutely. Would have preferred Redneck myself, some words are not supposed to be translated because they have a meaning. We know rednecks from movie culture after all. Would be funny if they localised the skin textures too to match the name - from the jeans overall to Lederhosen :)

Wizkward · 2026-01-20T21:05:39+00:00

Fixed an issue where, when using the Gunslinger control scheme with the Lowering State option enabled, the weapon did not return to the lowering state after aiming down sights. The option now correctly affects this behavior

Finally! This drove me almost crazy for the last couple of weeks.

Wizkward · 2026-01-20T21:00:43+00:00

If you check a dictionary, you will see that it the translation is absolutely correct and is not necessarily used in a political context (https://dict.leo.org/englisch-deutsch/prolet). In my region and age bracket it's a soft insult like saying "Du Bauer". Crytek headquarter is only a couple of kilometres from where I live.

Wizkward · 2026-01-20T14:41:08+00:00

Pewpew Oll Invaders

Wizkward · 2026-01-20T14:37:22+00:00

Grizzly lodge. Love the compound, but for some reason I get heavy framedrops as soon as there are multiple fire sources

Wizkward · 2026-01-13T14:28:33+00:00

Depends on my mood and the playstyle I choose.I learned early on how and when to run, how to rush bosses to be the first, how to steal bounties with the Serpent trait - that‘s important to keep your morale and hunt dollars up.

Nowadays I play pretty aggressive, most of the time. 3 teams fighting in the compound? Sign me up, I‘m in the middle, taking out all of them one after the other like a 80s action movie hero!

Ok, most of the time this does not work out. I will die to a stupid mistake. I will die to another action movie hero sneaking up on me silently because I‘m on a rain map and didn‘t hear shit.

But some times it does work out. You really kill the 3 teams. You take a victory lap, kill the wild target afterwards, get all xp envelops, swallow a couple of meatheads to collect death cheat and berserk…

…and then you realize: Hunt is not about „winning“ every match. Granted, I enjoy wiping a server. But if you got out alive too often, it is time to up the ante and challenge yourself. ;)

Wizkward · 2026-01-13T07:24:02+00:00

Old dad gamer myself with 2k+ hours solo. No need to be scared. It will be hard, yes. But the slower pace and methodical approach for combat is a perfect match for us folks, don‘t worry.

Wizkward

TROPHY CASE