Custom Footer

The custom-footer extension replaces pi’s default footer with a rich, color-coded statusline that keeps the most useful session metrics visible at all times. Here it is in action:

pi — custom-footer

$ pi

> colorize the footer example

✓ edited custom-footer.mdx

~/my-pi● main↑ 12.4k↓ 3.2k58k/200kclaude-sonnet-4.5

~/my-pi± feature/footer↑ 184k↓ 41k188k/200kclaude-sonnet-4.5

Two snapshots: a clean branch with a green context bar, and a dirty branch nearing the context limit (red bar). The ± turns red and the bar shifts through yellow to red as usage climbs.

Layout, left to right:

What it shows

Segment	Meaning
folder	Current working directory’s folder name
[± branch]	Git branch — ● when clean, ± (red) when there are uncommitted changes
↑ input	Cumulative input tokens for the session (green arrow)
↓ output	Cumulative output tokens for the session (red arrow)
Context bar	Progress bar of total tokens vs. the model’s context window
model	Active model id

The context bar is color-coded by usage:

• green < 70%
• yellow 70–90%
• red > 90%

The extension listens to branch-change events and re-renders automatically, so git status stays current as you work.

Installation

The extension is a single TypeScript file. Pi auto-discovers extensions placed in ~/.pi/agent/extensions/, so there is nothing to compile — TypeScript is loaded via jiti.

Option 1: Copy the file

mkdir -p ~/.pi/agent/extensions
cp custom-footer.ts ~/.pi/agent/extensions/

Option 2: Symlink from a checkout (recommended for development)

mkdir -p ~/.pi/agent/extensions
ln -sf ~/projects/jreb-pi-extensions/custom-footer.ts ~/.pi/agent/extensions/

With a symlink, edits to the source file are picked up on /reload with no copy step.

Activate it

/reload     # pick up the new extension
/footer     # toggle the custom footer on (and off again)

The extension enables itself automatically on every session_start, and the /footer command toggles it on or off at any time.

Configuring the context window

The context bar needs to know the active model’s context window. If your model’s window isn’t detected (for example a local or custom model), add it to ~/.pi/agent/models.json:

{
  "providers": {
    "your-provider": {
      "models": [
        { "id": "your-model", "contextWindow": 262144 }
      ]
    }
  }
}

When no context window is known, the footer falls back to a plain ctx: <tokens> readout instead of the progress bar.