Pi coding agent customization — Themes, Keybindings, Prompt Templates, System Prompt overrides, and Settings. Use when configuring or modifying the visual appearance, UI colors, keyboard shortcuts, prompt templates, or the default system prompt behavior of the pi terminal agent. Use for "custom theme pi", "change keybindings", "modify system prompt", "SYSTEM.md", "APPEND_SYSTEM.md", "settings.json", "keybindings.json", "prompt template", even if pi-cli-workspace is already active.
Pi coding agent customization — Themes, Keybindings, Prompt Templates, System Prompt overrides, and Settings. Use when configuring or modifying the visual appearance, UI colors, keyboard shortcuts, prompt templates, or the default system prompt behavior of the pi terminal agent. Use for "custom theme pi", "change keybindings", "modify system prompt", "SYSTEM.md", "APPEND_SYSTEM.md", "settings.json", "keybindings.json", "prompt template", even if pi-cli-workspace is already active.
compatibility
Configuration files for pi agent; read pi-mono/packages/coding-agent/docs and README sections for the specific feature being customized.
Pi Customization
Grounding
pi-mono/packages/coding-agent/docs/themes.md — theme JSON format (name, optional vars, required 51 colors tokens), locations (~/.pi/agent/themes/*.json, .pi/themes/*.json, packages, settings, CLI --theme), hot reload, color value formats.
pi-mono/packages/coding-agent/docs/keybindings.md — customization via ~/.pi/agent/keybindings.json, namespaced action IDs (tui.input.submit, tui.editor.cursorUp, app.interrupt, etc.), key format (modifier+key), full action tables.
pi-mono/packages/coding-agent/README.md — Context Files section for .pi/SYSTEM.md, ~/.pi/agent/SYSTEM.md, and APPEND_SYSTEM.md.
pi-mono/packages/coding-agent/docs/settings.md — the overall settings.json structure for tying these together.
Invariants
Theme Format: Themes define name (required, unique), optional vars for reusable color aliases, and all 51 colors tokens. There is no type, ui, syntax, or borders top-level key — everything is under colors. Loaded from ~/.pi/agent/themes/*.json (global) and .pi/themes/*.json (project).
Keybinding Config: Keybindings are configured in ~/.pi/agent/keybindings.json (not settings.json). IDs are namespaced: tui.input.submit (submit), tui.editor.cursorUp, app.interrupt, etc. Run /reload to apply changes without restarting.
Prompt Template Arguments: Templates use $1, $2, $@, ${@:N} positional syntax — not {variable} or <include>. The filename (minus .md) becomes the /name command.
System Prompt Override: Replace the default system prompt with .pi/SYSTEM.md (project) or ~/.pi/agent/SYSTEM.md (global). Use APPEND_SYSTEM.md to append instead of replace. Context files and skills are still appended after the override.
Workflows
Create a Theme: Copy dark.json from packages/coding-agent/src/modes/interactive/theme/, customize color values under the colors key, place it in ~/.pi/agent/themes/, and select via /settings or pi --theme <name>.
Override Keys: Create or edit ~/.pi/agent/keybindings.json mapping action IDs to key arrays (e.g., "tui.input.submit": ["ctrl+enter"]). Run /reload to apply.
Create a Prompt Template: Write a .md file in ~/.pi/agent/prompts/ with optional YAML frontmatter (description); use $1, $@ for arguments. Invoke with /filename in the editor.
Override the System Prompt: Create .pi/SYSTEM.md in the project or ~/.pi/agent/SYSTEM.md globally to replace the default system prompt. Use APPEND_SYSTEM.md at the same locations if you want to append custom instructions instead.
Anti-patterns
Do not hardcode keybindings into agent component source code — use the configurable namespaces from keybindings.md.
Do not put keybindings in settings.json — keybindings have their own file (~/.pi/agent/keybindings.json).
Do not use {variable} or <include src="..."> syntax in prompt templates — the actual syntax is $1, $@, ${@:N}.
