The extension failed to load outright on older pi installs:
Failed to load extension ".../mcpctl-pi.ts":
Cannot find module '@earendil-works/pi-ai'
pi doesn't resolve an extension's bare specifiers the ordinary way — it
hands jiti a hard-coded alias table built from its own dependencies, and
that table differs between pi distributions. `@earendil-works/pi-coding-
agent` (0.84.1) aliases both the `@earendil-works/*` and legacy
`@mariozechner/*` names; `@mariozechner/pi-coding-agent` (0.73.1) aliases
only the old ones. Neither resolves the other's namespace, so a single
import outside the intersection takes the whole extension down: every
tool, the /mcpctl command, and the status line, all gone.
The only thing we used from pi-ai was `StringEnum`, a six-line wrapper
over `Type.Unsafe`. Inlined as a local `stringEnum` with byte-identical
output, so `typebox` — aliased by every published pi — is now the sole
bare runtime import. The call site also passes `description` through,
which the pi-ai version was silently dropping.
Guarded in tests/config/pi-extension-embed.test.ts: any runtime import in
the embedded sources that isn't `node:`, relative, or typebox now fails.
Verified against both installs with the same active project: 0.73.1
reproduced the error verbatim before the change and loads cleanly after,
and 0.84.1 keeps registering the gate tool exactly as before.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_014tsRTqhEC7YYYYaP3cBqo8
pi's ExtensionSelectorComponent.updateList() renders every option with no
windowing, so 50 rows scrolled the transcript away. prime-agent's selector
windows to ~20 itself and shows a true (20/356) counter; matching that height
makes both hosts behave the same.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_017BMXdb2qZbPSh8Q7XpTyjB
Switching projects twice left the agent believing it had lost MCP access
entirely: it kept calling the previous project's tool names, got
"Tool mc_<old>_begin_session not found", and concluded no MCP tools existed.
Root cause is a pi constraint, not a bug in the switch. pi has no way to
unregister a tool — `registerTool` only ever does `extension.tools.set(name)`
— so the previous project's `mc_*` tools stay registered and merely go
inactive. `setActiveTools` correctly drops them from the live set, but the
conversation still contains the old project's tool listing, so the model
keeps calling names that now answer "not found".
Nothing was telling the model the tool set had changed. Now the switch
injects a custom message naming the active project, stating that previously
listed mcpctl tool names are dead, and listing what is actually callable.
Custom messages are converted to user-role messages by `convertToLlm`, so
they do reach the model (unlike `appendEntry`, which is explicitly excluded
from context). `display: false` keeps it out of the transcript — the
notification is what the human reads.
The gate is also called out explicitly, in both the notification and the
injected message. A freshly switched project gets a new mcp-session-id and is
therefore gated again, so "1 tool(s) ready" is correct but reads like a
failure; it now says which begin_session call unlocks the rest.
`toolChangeAnnouncement` is exported and unit-tested rather than left as
wording only reachable through a TUI.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_017BMXdb2qZbPSh8Q7XpTyjB
pi's selector is a plain arrow-key list: `ExtensionUIDialogOptions` has no
search field and `ExtensionSelectorComponent` ignores typed characters, so
filtering has to happen before the list is handed over. With 356 projects —
most of them `smoke-proj-none-*` leftovers — arrowing to the one you want is
hopeless.
Above 20 projects the picker now asks for a filter first. Terms are
space-separated and all must match as case-insensitive substrings, so
`home auto` finds `homeautomation`. Blank shows everything, Esc cancels.
The active project sorts first (most likely pick), then alphabetical. A
result set over 50 is capped, and the title says what was dropped — a
silently truncated list reads as "that's all of them".
The ordering and matching are extracted into an exported `filterProjects` so
they are unit-tested rather than eyeballed through a TUI.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_017BMXdb2qZbPSh8Q7XpTyjB
The pi extension shipped in `src/pi-ext/` was covered by no tsconfig and no
eslint config, so nothing ever checked it against pi's API. Pointing tsc at
the published @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent types found the command surface
to be inert.
Fixes:
- `/mcpctl` did nothing. `ctx.ui.select` takes `string[]` and returns the
chosen string; it was called with `{value,label}` objects, so the menu
rendered five `[object Object]` rows and `choice === "status"` never
matched any branch. Labels are now plain strings mapped back to actions.
- The headless branch returned a status string from a handler typed
`Promise<void>`; pi drops it. Reports via notify instead.
- "Sync skills" omitted `--agent pi`, writing into ~/.claude/skills — in an
integration whose stated purpose is to not depend on ~/.claude — and said
so in its own success message. It also ran execSync with `stdio: "inherit"`,
painting raw output over pi's TUI, and interpolated the project name into a
shell string. Now execFile with `--agent pi` and captured output.
- Tool results typed `content[].type` as `string`; pi's AgentToolResult wants
the `"text"` literal.
- `callTool` asserted `Promise<unknown>` to `ToolCallResult`.
- Sanitising MCP tool names to `[a-z0-9_]` can collide (`docs.search` vs
`docs-search`). The colliding tool was silently never registered but still
reported active, so its calls were forwarded to the first tool. Names are
now disambiguated and tracked with the MCP tool they forward to.
- `registerWithPi` rewrote settings.json even when nothing changed. Since
parsing strips `//` comments, a no-op run destroyed them.
Guards, so this class of bug can't return:
- `src/pi-ext/tsconfig.json` checks the extension against the real published
pi types (dev dependency, not a shim — a shim drifting from the published
API is the exact failure being guarded). Wired into `pnpm typecheck`.
- eslint now covers `src/pi-ext/*.ts` like every other source file.
- A test fails if the embedded copy in `config/pi-extension.ts` is stale;
editing the sources without regenerating silently shipped old code.
Also: the branch added `config pi` without regenerating shell completions
(the committed-completions test was failing), and the doc advertised
`mcpctl pi sync-skills`, which does not exist. Both corrected, plus a note
on the session-token vs `mcpctl_pat_` bearer difference that would bite
against an authenticated `mcplocal serve`.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_017BMXdb2qZbPSh8Q7XpTyjB
