pi-claude-style-tools

Claude Code inspired tool rendering for Pi — Shiki-powered diffs, status dots, branch connectors, file icons, and configurable output modes.

Features

• Compact built-in tool rendering for read, bash, grep, find, ls, edit, and write
• Claude-style OpenAI tool rendering for apply_patch plus common Pi/OpenAI-style tools like webfetch, web_search, fetch_content, task tools, and context tools
• apply_patch diff previews that render parsed file patches in the call phase, similar to edit/write
• Adaptive edit/write diffs with split or unified layouts, syntax highlighting, and inline word-level emphasis
• Diff stat bar with colored add/remove summary and hunk metadata
• Progressive collapsed diff hints that shorten on narrow terminals
• Thinking labels during streaming and final messages, with context sanitization
• Claude-style transcript grammar controls for assistant/thinking prefixes, message spacing, hidden thinking labels, and active working tips
• MCP-aware rendering with hidden, summary, and preview modes
• Configurable output modes for read, search, bash, and MCP results
• Transparent tool backgrounds in transparent or border mode
• Theme-adaptive palette — borders, branch connectors, dim text, spinner accent, and diff backgrounds automatically follow the active pi theme (set themeAdaptive: false to keep the fixed Claude-style palette)
• Transparent edit/write diffs with universal red/green diff colors
• Global border patch for all tool rows, including unknown/custom tools

Configuration

Set in .pi/settings.json or ~/.pi/settings.json:

{
  "toolBackground": "border",
  "readOutputMode": "preview",
  "searchOutputMode": "preview",
  "mcpOutputMode": "preview",
  "previewLines": 8,
  "bashOutputMode": "opencode",
  "bashCollapsedLines": 10,
  "diffCollapsedLines": 24,
  "themeAdaptive": true,
  "diffTheme": "github-dark",
  "spinnerColor": "borderAccent",
  "spinnerVerbs": ["Reviewing", "Polishing"],
  "spinnerVerbMode": "append",
  "messageStyle": "claude",
  "assistantPrefix": "●",
  "thinkingPrefix": "✻",
  "messageSpacing": "comfortable",
  "workingTipEnabled": true,
  "workingTipText": "Run /install-github-app to tag @claude right from your GitHub issues and PRs",
  "hiddenThinkingLabel": "Pondering..."
}

Theme integration

When themeAdaptive is true (default), the following colors are derived from the active pi theme on every render and re-derived whenever the theme changes:

Element	Derived from
Tool outline borders (top/bottom rules)	borderMuted
Branch connectors (├─, └─, │)	dim (fallback: muted)
"✻ Worked for Ns" line	muted
Thinking-block italic gray	muted
Diff add/remove accents	toolDiffAdded / toolDiffRemoved
Diff background tints	mixed against toolSuccessBg base
Spinner glyph + verb text (✻ Working…)	borderAccent (fallback: accent)
Spinner status text	muted

User-supplied diffTheme presets and diffColors overrides always win over theme-derived defaults. File-type icons (e.g. ts, py, rs) keep their language-identity colors and are not theme-derived.

Set themeAdaptive: false to keep the original fixed Claude-style palette regardless of the active pi theme.

Toggle at runtime with /cc-theme

/cc-theme           # show current setting + theme name
/cc-theme status    # show current setting + color preview (incl. spinner)
/cc-theme on        # follow pi theme
/cc-theme off       # keep fixed Claude palette
/cc-theme toggle    # flip the current value

The selection is persisted to ~/.pi/settings.json and applied to the next rendered tool row. No restart required.

Repaint the spinner with /cc-spinner

The spinner glyph and verb text (e.g. ✻ Cooking…) share borderAccent by default so the working indicator reads as one unit. The status suffix (e.g. (thinking · ↓ 10 tokens · 2s)) follows muted. Use /cc-spinner to bind either text element to any other theme color key:

/cc-spinner preview                  # list every common theme key with a colored sample
/cc-spinner color <key>              # change glyph + verb color together (e.g. thinkingHigh)
/cc-spinner verb <key>               # alias for color, kept for older muscle memory
/cc-spinner status <key>             # change the status suffix color
/cc-spinner reset                    # restore color defaults (spinner=borderAccent, status=muted)
/cc-spinner verbs list               # show custom spinner verbs and append/replace mode
/cc-spinner verbs add Reviewing      # add a custom verb or phrase
/cc-spinner verbs remove Reviewing   # remove a custom verb or phrase
/cc-spinner verbs mode append        # append custom verbs to the defaults
/cc-spinner verbs mode replace       # use only custom verbs, with safe fallback to defaults
/cc-spinner verbs reset              # remove user custom verbs and mode

Color selections are persisted as spinnerColor / spinnerStatusColor in ~/.pi/settings.json and applied on the next spinner tick. Older spinnerVerbColor settings still work as a backward-compatible alias. Custom verbs are persisted as spinnerVerbs and spinnerVerbMode; they are picked at the next turn start. /cc-spinner verbs ... writes user settings in ~/.pi/settings.json; project-level custom verbs can be set manually in .pi/settings.json. When both project and user spinner settings exist, the spinner reader applies project settings first and user settings second.

Tune assistant/thinking transcript chrome with /cc-message

/cc-message                              # show current message chrome settings
/cc-message style claude                 # screenshot-style transcript rhythm
/cc-message style classic                # older package spacing/prefix behavior
/cc-message spacing comfortable          # keep one blank line between paragraphs
/cc-message spacing compact              # remove blank lines inside assistant/thinking blocks
/cc-message assistant-prefix ●           # set assistant paragraph prefix
/cc-message thinking-prefix ✻            # set visible thinking prefix
/cc-message hidden-thinking-label Pondering...
/cc-message tip on                       # show active working tip line
/cc-message tip off                      # hide active working tip line
/cc-message tip text Run /help for tips   # set active working tip text
/cc-message reset                        # restore message chrome defaults

messageStyle: "claude" trims leading/trailing blank render lines, collapses paragraph gaps, and aligns wrapped assistant/thinking lines under the message body, matching Claude Code's sparse transcript grammar. messageStyle: "classic" keeps the previous package behavior. The active working tip is rendered as a subordinate └─ Tip: line under the spinner when supported by the Pi loader.

Tool background modes

Value	Behavior
default	Standard Pi tool backgrounds
transparent	Transparent tool backgrounds
border	Transparent backgrounds with top/bottom border lines

Output modes

Setting	Values	Default
readOutputMode	hidden, summary, preview	preview
searchOutputMode	hidden, count, preview	preview
mcpOutputMode	hidden, summary, preview	preview
bashOutputMode	opencode, summary, preview	opencode

Numeric settings

Setting	Default	Description
previewLines	8	Lines shown in collapsed preview mode
expandedPreviewMaxLines	4000	Max lines when fully expanded
bashCollapsedLines	10	Lines for collapsed bash output
diffCollapsedLines	24	Diff lines before collapsing

Notes

This package targets recent Pi versions where tool renderers use:

• renderCall(args, theme, context)
• renderResult(result, { expanded, isPartial }, theme, context)

Unknown/custom tools do not have a public global renderer hook in Pi, so this package patches container rendering to add top/bottom borders for all tool executions in border mode.

Credits

This project builds upon and was inspired by the excellent work of:

• @heyhuynhgiabuu/pi-pretty by huynhgiabuu — Pretty terminal output with syntax-highlighted file reads, colored bash output, and tree-view directory listings
• @heyhuynhgiabuu/pi-diff by huynhgiabuu — Shiki-powered terminal diff renderer with word-level diffs in split and unified views
• pi-tool-display by MasuRii — Compact tool call rendering, diff visualization, and output truncation