Extensions

Extensions are pi's own package system, not something the portal invented. Anything you install is available to every session, and its slash commands appear in the palette.

Do not confuse them with channel packages, which are a portal concept with a separate format and a separate install directory.

	Extensions	Channel packages
Owned by	pi	The portal
Installed with	pi install	The portal's installer
Live in	~/.pi/agent (/data/home)	CHANNELS_DIR (/data/channels)
Provide	Slash commands, skills, prompts, themes, model providers	Ways to reach the agent

Installing

Settings → Extensions. Four spec forms:

Form	Example
npm	npm:pi-llama-cpp
git	git:github.com/user/repo@v1
url	https://github.com/user/repo
path	/absolute/path/to/package

They persist across restarts, because HOME points at the data volume. Update all upgrades everything; the bin icon removes one.

Configuring

An extension that reads settings gets its own page in the settings navigation, with one field per key. Values are written to pi's settings.json, which is where extensions read from. Clearing a field removes the key rather than storing an empty string, so the extension falls back to its own default.

The keys are recovered by reading the package source, not declared — see the warning in Settings.

What they can add

A package can contribute more than commands. pi-llama-cpp registers a model provider, so a local llama-server appears in the model picker alongside hosted models:

llama-server=http://192.168.1.101:8080 / qwen36-35b-a3b-mtp   64000 ctx

Those models only exist once extensions are bound, which is later than session creation — the portal handles that, but it is worth knowing when a local model seems not to stick.

Built-in skills

The portal ships skills of its own, loaded from the image rather than installed, so they are there without anyone adding them. They appear in Settings → Skills under "Built in and from packages", read-only — editing one in place would be lost on the next deploy without saying so.

There is one so far. skill-creator teaches the agent to write skills: the format, the frontmatter and the ways it silently fails, how to split detail into supporting files, and where to write one so it loads. Ask the agent to remember a procedure and it has somewhere to put it.

A skills directory holds directories

pi treats any .md file sitting directly in a skills root as a skill in its own right. A stray README there is reported as a broken skill — keep the root to directories only.

Interactive commands

Extensions can ask questions. ctx.ui.select, confirm, input and editor all render as a modal in the browser, standing in for the menu the TUI would draw. notify, setStatus and setWidget are one-way and do not open anything.

An unanswered dialog times out after five minutes rather than wedging the session forever.