mngr-pi-coding

Plugin that registers the pi-coding agent type for mngr.

Pi is a minimal terminal coding harness (published on npm as @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent). This plugin runs it as a fully-featured mngr agent: lifecycle-aware (RUNNING vs WAITING), transcript-capturing, and resumable across restarts.

Usage

mngr create my-agent pi-coding

Pass arguments to the pi command with -- (e.g. to pick a provider/model):

mngr create my-agent pi-coding -- --provider anthropic --model claude-haiku-4-5

Pi needs a provider credential. The simplest path is to set an API key in your environment and pass it through, e.g. mngr create my-agent pi-coding --pass-env ANTHROPIC_API_KEY, or run pi once and use /login to populate ~/.pi/agent/auth.json (which the plugin shares into each agent).

Tool permissions. pi runs tools -- including shell commands -- without a confirmation gate: it has no built-in approval prompts, and mngr adds none. To restrict an agent, use pi's own --tools <allowlist> via cli_args, or run untrusted work in a sandbox.

What you get

• Per-agent isolation. Each agent gets its own pi config dir via PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR ($MNGR_AGENT_STATE_DIR/plugin/pi_coding/), so settings, sessions, and state never collide. Your ~/.pi/agent/ auth.json, settings.json, and resource dirs (skills, prompts, extensions, themes, agents) are shared in (symlinked locally, copied to remote hosts). auth.json is symlinked, so a /login or token refresh in any agent propagates to the rest. (agents carries subagent definitions, so an installed subagent extension works under mngr -- pi ships no built-in subagents.)
• RUNNING vs WAITING. mngr list shows whether the agent is mid-turn or idle, and stays correct when the agent runs a nested pi via its bash tool.
• Transcripts. mngr transcript my-agent renders the conversation. A raw pi message stream is also captured under the agent state dir.
• Resume. mngr stop then mngr start continues the same pi session with full context.

These are powered by a small mngr-owned pi extension that the plugin provisions and loads with pi -e; pi has no shell-hook surface, so its TypeScript extension API is the lever for lifecycle, readiness, and transcript signalling.

Configuration

Define a custom variant in your mngr config (mngr config edit):

[agent_types.my_pi]
parent_type = "pi-coding"
cli_args = "--provider anthropic --model claude-haiku-4-5"

Then create agents with your custom type:

mngr create my-agent my_pi

Tunables on the pi-coding agent type:

See the mngr agent types documentation for more details.