pi-delegate

Pi Delegate

You are the orchestrator. Delegate a bounded coding task to a separate implementer - the Pi coding agent CLI - then review what it produced and land it yourself. You write the brief and own the judgment; the implementer makes changes in its own session; you verify and commit.

The loop needs only a shell command and file access, so any comparable orchestrator can drive it.

When NOT to use this

• The task is small enough to do inline; delegation overhead is not worth it.
• The pi CLI is not installed or authenticated.
• You need a sandboxed implementer. Pi has no sandbox and no permission modes; --read-only restricts the tool surface, but a write-capable run executes without prompts.

Prerequisites (check once)

1. Install pi with npm install -g @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent.
2. Authenticate: /login inside pi for a subscription provider, or an API-key environment variable / pi's auth file for an API-key provider.
3. Confirm pi --version succeeds.
4. Work in, or point --cd at, the target git repository.

Choose the model (optional)

Omit --model to use pi's configured default. To pick another, choose from pi --list-models and pass an explicit id or pattern like <provider>/<model-id> or sonnet:high. The relay accepts letters, digits, and . _ : / - only (the value reaches a shell on Windows), so glob patterns with * are not forwarded.

The loop

Run these five steps per task. Steps 1, 4, and 5 require judgment; 2 and 3 are mechanical.

1. Write the brief

Pi sees only the text you send plus what it can inspect in the workspace - no chat history or shared context. Include the goal, current state, what to change, what to leave untouched, the project's actual gates, and a report contract. Tell pi not to commit. Keep one task per brief. Pi auto-loads AGENTS.md/CLAUDE.md context files from the workspace and its parents, so repo instructions reach it without inlining. See references/writing-the-brief.md.

2. Dispatch

Use the bundled relay. It pipes the brief to pi --mode json on stdin, captures the JSON event stream, and writes result.json. (<skill-dir> is the installed folder containing this SKILL.md.)

node "<skill-dir>/scripts/relay.mjs" --brief brief.txt --cd /path/to/repo
# choose a model:                          add --model <id from pi --list-models>
# choose a provider:                       add --provider <name>
# read-only run (review/diagnosis):        add --read-only
# trust project .pi resources:             add --approve
# resume the most recent session:          add --resume-last  (delta brief only)
# resume a specific session:               add --session <id> (delta brief only)
# hard time limit (watchdog):              add --timeout 2h  (the 30m default suits short runs; implementation briefs routinely need 1-2h)
# see all options:                         node .../relay.mjs --help

The child process's cwd pins the workspace. The relay writes artifacts under the system temp dir by default and never commits. See references/dispatch-and-poll.md.

3. Wait for completion

The relay blocks until pi finishes. Run it with the orchestrator's background-command facility, or background it in the shell and poll for result.json. A pre-run usage error exits 2 and writes no result; a missing pi exits 127 and writes status: "pi_unavailable".

Trust process state and the working tree over a progress display. Completion means the process exited and result.json exists. Pi's full report is the finalMessage field in result.json (also printed in full on stdout between the report markers).

4. Review - do not trust the self-report

Treat pi's final message and gate claims as claims:

• Re-run the project's gates yourself.
• Read the diff against the brief, starting with touchedFiles.
• Run relevant guard skills if installed.
• Round-trip migrations and grep for dangling references after removals or renames.

See references/review-and-land.md.

5. Land it

The implementer edits the working tree; the orchestrator commits. Commit only after the gates pass and the diff holds. If rework is needed, send a delta brief with --resume-last or --session <id>, then review again.

Autonomy and permissions

Pi has no sandbox and no permission modes. A default headless run reads, writes, edits, and executes shell commands with no prompts - the controls are:

1. --read-only restricts pi's callable tools to --tools read,grep,find,ls across built-in, extension, and custom tools. Installed extension code still runs with the user's host permissions.
2. The relay passes --no-approve by default, so project .pi settings, extensions, and skills stay untrusted. --approve is the explicit opt-in for a repository the user trusts.
3. touchedFiles and the diff are the record of what changed. Inspect them after every run.

Authorization model

Delegation is something the human opts into. Once they have ("run this queue", "proceed"), committing verified, gate-passing work is the agreed contract. Two limits remain: surface, don't absorb (report pi's design decisions, defensible-but-unasked turns, and non-blocking nitpicks) and stop for scope changes (if correct completion needs going beyond the brief, ask instead of expanding the mandate). See references/review-and-land.md.

References

• references/writing-the-brief.md - structure, report contract, real gates, stdin delivery, and delta briefs.
• references/dispatch-and-poll.md - flags, artifacts, result.json, polling, and failure recovery.
• references/review-and-land.md - review checklist, commit boundary, and rework through pi sessions.
• references/multi-task-queues.md - sequential queues, constraint carry-forward, progress tracking, and the final coherence pass.