Pi mkaz Sidebar

A fixed activity sidebar for Pi. The sidebar displays agent, session, workspace, context, and optional usage details, with access to recipes in a project justfile. It also replaces the footer with a minimal status line.

Install locally

I recommend cloning/forking the repo and customizing to your own taste.

Development: To clone, install dev dependencies, and launch Pi loading the extension:

git clone https://github.com/mkaz/pi-mkaz-sidebar
cd pi-mkaz-sidebar
npm install
pi -e .

Typecheck the sources with:

npm run check

Install: To make available to all instances, create symlink:

ln -s /DIR/TO/SRC/pi-mkaz-sidebar ~/.pi/agent/extensions

Or you can add a symlink in a project's .pi/ directory.

Controls

/sidebar                         # toggle the sidebar
/sidebar on|off                  # show or hide the sidebar
/sidebar disable|enable
/just [recipe [arguments...]]
/just --stop|--restart|--status

The sidebar is 44 columns wide and appears only when the terminal has enough room to preserve 64 columns for Pi. It has no resize mode, mouse handling, or terminal-input interception.

Justfile recipes

If the trusted project has a justfile (also .justfile, Justfile, or .Justfile) and just is installed, run its recipes directly with /just:

/just test
/just run --port 3000

The recipe runs from the project root. The sidebar displays its status, command, and the last three non-empty lines of combined standard output and error in a JUSTFILE panel. Use /just --stop to stop a long-running recipe, /just --restart to rerun the most recent recipe, or /just --status (or /just) for its status. Pi stops a running recipe when the session shuts down.

The extension reads the justfile when the session starts. After adding or changing one, restart Pi or use /reload.

TODO tool

The optional todo tool lets the model create and track session tasks with pending, in_progress, and completed states. Tasks appear in a TODO sidebar panel. The full task snapshot is stored in each tool result, so the list follows session branches and survives /reload and compaction without a separate data file.

The tool supports create, update, list, get, delete, and clear. It does not add a separate overlay or /todos display because the list is already visible in the sidebar.

Settings

Edit settings.json in the extension directory:

{
  "todo": true,
  "usage": false
}

Set todo to false to omit the tool and its sidebar panel. Set usage to false to hide the USAGE panel. Run /reload after changing the file. Missing settings default to true; an invalid settings file uses the defaults and prints a warning.

The rest of the sidebar uses its built-in defaults and Pi's configured theme. To change its behavior or appearance, edit the extension source.

Privacy and local behavior

• Makes no telemetry, analytics, or external network requests. A just recipe may make its own connections.
• Does not store prompts, responses, credentials, or session content outside Pi's session history.
• Stores TODO snapshots in Pi tool results; it does not create a separate TODO data file.
• Reads settings.json from the extension directory.
• Reads Pi usage/session metadata to render the sidebar.
• Reads project justfiles only for trusted projects.
• Runs read-only Git inspection to summarize the worktree; untracked file contents are never read.

License

MIT

Inspired by pi-atelier extension.