| name | pi-custom-model |
| description | Register custom Pi Agent model slugs so saved OpenRouter variants resolve correctly. |
| category | operations |
| risk | critical |
| source | community |
| source_repo | davidondrej/skills |
| source_type | community |
| date_added | 2026-07-07 |
| author | davidondrej |
| tags | ["pi-agent","models","openrouter"] |
| tools | ["claude","codex"] |
| license | MIT |
| license_source | https://github.com/davidondrej/skills/blob/main/LICENSE |
| disable-model-invocation | true |
Pi custom / variant model
When to Use
Pi's saved default only loads if the exact provider/id exists in its model registry. Pi ships a static bundled list per provider — so OpenRouter routing-shortcut variants (:nitro = sort by throughput, :floor = cheapest, :exacto = quality tool-use) and any brand-new slug are NOT in it. When the default doesn't resolve, Pi silently falls through to its built-in per-provider default (for openrouter that's moonshotai/kimi-k2.6) — looking like Pi "reset" your model. Fix = register the slug as a custom model so find(provider, id) matches.
Files (global)
~/.pi/agent/settings.json — defaultProvider, defaultModel, defaultThinkingLevel~/.pi/agent/models.json — custom models, keyed by provider~/.pi/agent/auth.json — provider credentials (check the provider key exists)
Steps
- Confirm the slug is real before adding it (e.g. check the OpenRouter model/variant exists). A typo'd id also silently falls back.
- Confirm auth. The provider must have a key in
auth.json (or an env var like OPENROUTER_API_KEY). No auth → the model is registered but unavailable → still falls back.
- Add the model to
models.json under providers.<provider>.models. For a built-in provider (openrouter, anthropic, etc.) you only supply metadata — api, baseUrl, and auth are inherited from the bundled defaults. Example:
{
"providers": {
"openrouter": {
"models": [
{
"id": "z-ai/glm-5.2:nitro",
Copy // from the base model (the variant shares them) — find the bundled entry in . Don't hardcode generic 128k/16k if the real model is bigger.
