# pi-plate A slice of cherry pie on a plate, the juices held on the plate rather than the table A [pi](https://pi.dev) extension that tells the model what it cannot know: the date, the machine, and the state of your git repositories. The plate does not make the pie. It keeps the juices off the table. Facts arrive as `` blocks, written into the conversation where the model reads them and you do not. A block appears only when it is warranted, so a session where nothing changes costs nothing after the first turn. ## Install ```sh pi install npm:pi-plate ``` ## Sent after each of your messages These ride a hidden message appended to your turn, at the end of the context, so a change costs only the tail rather than the whole conversation. ### Git Inside a repository, the branch, the commit, and how much is uncommitted: ``` Git: branch main, at 49f84062, 3 uncommitted changes ``` Start pi in a directory holding several checkouts and it reads all of them: ``` Git: 3 repos in /Users/you/Code: api: branch main, at 1c2b3a4d, 2 uncommitted changes web: branch develop, at 9f8e7d6c, clean, 1 behind of origin/develop docs: branch main, no commits yet, 1 uncommitted changes ``` Sent again only when it changes. If git cannot answer -- not a repository, git missing, a command that times out -- pi-plate says nothing rather than guessing. ### Time ``` Current Time: Local: Wed Jul 29 2026 01:26:00 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time), UTC: 2026-07-29T06:26:00.833Z ``` Local and UTC together, so neither has to be converted to compare against a log line. ## Sent once, in the system prompt These do not change while pi is running, so they sit at the top where a byte-stable string costs nothing to re-send. ### Machine ``` Environment: macOS (Darwin) arm64 ``` Which dialect of `stat` and `sed` this is. ### Shell pi runs every `bash` command in a new shell, so `cd` and `export` do not carry between calls. pi's own tool description does not say so. ``` Run multi-step shell work as a single command chained with &&. Each bash call starts a new /bin/bash in /Users/you/Code; cd, export, and shell variables do not carry between calls. ``` ## Requirements - [pi](https://pi.dev), any version exposing `before_agent_start` - git, optionally -- the git note is skipped without it Works with any model pi can talk to, local or hosted. ## Limits pi-plate states facts. It does not override habits: knowing the platform does not reliably stop a model reaching for a GNU flag on a Mac, though it does shorten the recovery. Scanning a directory of checkouts costs one `git status` per repo per turn -- about 37 ms for three repos, 155 ms for six. ## Development Run from a local clone instead of the registry: ```sh git clone https://github.com/joematthews/pi-plate cd pi-plate npm install pi install . ``` `npm run check` runs typecheck, lint, format, spell, and tests. `npx tsx debug.ts` prints every note pi-plate would inject, and what triggers each one. ## License [MIT](LICENSE) (c) Joe Matthews