What is Pi? An AI Coding Assistant You Can Customize to Your Workflow

If you have heard of tools like Cursor, Claude Code, and Codex CLI, you can think of Pi in the same general direction: it is also a tool that lets AI help you read code, modify code, run commands, and organize workflows.

But Pi's positioning is quite special. It does not focus on being a closed product with "all features packed in," but is more like a customizable tool foundation. The official team calls it a minimal terminal coding harness, meaning an AI coding assistant in the terminal that keeps its core as small as possible but can be extended.

Simply put:

Pi is like an AI toolbox that you can modify yourself. You don't have to work the way it originally designed; instead, you can make Pi adapt to your way of working.

One-Sentence Summary

Pi is an AI coding agent used in the terminal. It allows developers to customize the AI assistant into a tool that fits their project and team habits through extensions, skills, prompt templates, themes, and packages.

What Problems Does It Solve?

Many AI coding tools share a common problem: the tool itself has a pre-designed workflow, and users can only follow its interface and rules.

This is convenient for general users, but it can be a bottleneck for teams with fixed development workflows. For example:

• The team has its own commit conventions.
• Projects have fixed testing, deployment, and inspection processes.
• The company has specific requirements for permissions, security, and model providers.
• Users want the AI assistant to read their own project rules or frequently used prompts.

Pi's idea is: rather than requiring everyone to use the same workflow, it is better to let the tool be customizable.

Therefore, Pi is more suitable for these users:

• Already have their own development workflow.
• Want AI tools to "cooperate" with them, rather than "guide" them.
• Want to switch between different AI behavior configurations across different projects.

Core Features

1. Extensions

Pi's functionality can be expanded through extensions. The official team provides a marketplace where developers can install tools made by others, or package their commonly used tools into extensions to share.

2. Skills

Skills are a set of predefined task workflows. For example, you can create a skill to "help me review a PR and comply with company standards," and then execute it with just one command.

3. Prompt Templates

Pi allows you to save commonly used prompts as templates, so you don't have to retype them every time. This is very useful for users who frequently need to communicate with AI in specific formats.

4. Themes

The visual interface of the terminal can be customized. Although not a core feature, it can make the interface more comfortable for developers who stare at the terminal all day.

5. Cross-Model Support

Pi supports multiple AI models (including OpenAI, Anthropic, and local models) and is not tied to a single provider.

How Is It Different From Cursor and Claude Code?

What Do Non-Engineers Need to Know?

Pi is a tool geared towards advanced developers. If you are not used to the terminal, it might not be your entry-level choice. But if you are an engineer or DevOps professional, Pi allows you to embed AI directly into your existing workflow, rather than opening an extra window to switch back and forth.

Our Observations

The AI coding assistant market is diverging: on one side are tools focused on being "ready out of the box" (like Cursor, Claude Code), and on the other are tools centered on "high customizability" (like Pi). The emergence of Pi indicates that more engineering teams are starting to realize: an AI assistant is not just a tool, but a workflow component that needs to be customized.

Sources

• Official Website: https://pi.ai/
• Accessed: 2026-06-14