pi-vscode-panels

Panel orchestration for Pi sessions running inside the Pi VS Code extension: one Pi session can spawn sibling sessions in background tabs and drive them — prompt, wait for completion, list — the way the herdr CLI lets an agent drive neighboring panes.

Install

pi install npm:pi-vscode-panels

# or from a checkout of the pi-vscode repo
pi install ./plugins/panels

The package loads in every Pi session but registers its tools only in sessions started by the Pi VS Code extension (PI_VSCODE_STATUS_* env present). Elsewhere it is inert.

Tools

Tool	Purpose
panel_create	Open a sibling Pi in a background tab (no focus steal); optional model picks the panel's model (any pi --model pattern, e.g. "openai/gpt-5:high"). Resolves once its Pi is ready. Returns the tabId.
panel_prompt	Submit a prompt to a panel (bracketed paste + Enter; newlines stay literal). Returns immediately.
panel_wait	Block until a panel goes idle, with stall detection and a configurable timeout. Pass tabIds to wait for several panels at once (fan-in).
panel_list	List all Pi sessions in the window with tabId, title, and state; the caller is marked self.

Panels share the workspace filesystem, so agents exchange briefs and results through files (for example review/<topic>/a.md). The bundled pi-panels skill teaches Pi the full review → human check → fix → verify loop.

Develop

Maintained per the pi-package-template conventions: no build step (pi loads .ts via jiti), pi core packages are peerDependencies with "*".

npm install
npm run typecheck

# smoke-test the tools (inside the Pi VS Code extension)
pi -ne -e . --no-session -p "Call the panel_list tool. You MUST use the panel_list tool."