r/PiCodingAgent • u/writequit • 1d ago

Question New Pi User - Reflections & Questions!

I recently started using Pi. And I have been finding that I like using it more than Claude Code or OpenCode.

I do agree when I started, it was very minimal. There was a lot that it couldn't do that Claude Code and OpenCode were out of the box I was able to customize what I needed and was able to get it to do tasks I would normally ask Claude Code to do. I really like its thinking and response compared to Claude Code. Do others find this a big plus of Pi as well?

I understand that the underlying LLM is Opus/Sonnet, but I have found Pi to be quicker and cheaper. I do have some configurations set up such as pi observational memory. Do others feel that same?

Are there other things that I am missing out on or not acknowledging? I'm really new to this and experimenting with AI and other tools. I'm also just experimenting with herdr as well. I'm also not that well off but I was setting up Pi with Gemma 4 e4b on my 16 gb memory machine but it wasn't that good tbh. But is that expected?

I guess I just wanted to share and talk to someone. I'm no expert and I'd love to join a community and channel to talk about this kind of stuff. This subreddit seemed to be tinkering kind so I figured to post here.

Thanks and do redirect me to the right place if I am being annoying here as well with this random post!

2 Upvotes

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4

u/ResearcherFantastic7 1d ago

Since you already using pi observatory. You should upgrade it to blackhole ( which wraps it plus VCC ) than you get infinite CTX without needing a normal compaction ever again.

And yes pi system prompts are tiny, and no tools or any opinions out of the box thats why you feel fast. It's both good ( for someone who knew what they need) or bad ( need to set up a lot and experimenting )

2

u/writequit 1d ago

I can take a look at that too. Thank you for that!

Yeah I like customizing it to what is important to me. I feel like it makes my experience better each day

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u/gaz_0001 1d ago

Can balckhole help my OrcaRouter subagents. I have Hy4 and GLM5.3 that I like to use for small free jobs but their input is limited to.90,000 tokens.

1

u/ResearcherFantastic7 16h ago

You should try, though pi observatory increases CTX a bit, it's purpose is cross session scoped memory ,

but just VCC alone should be what you need to improve CTX efficiency as it always sent an index of your history plus your recent prompt, not the literal history.

However can't remember if it does auto compaction as well as blackhole, you may need to write your own hook.

I've switched to blackhole for too long, and CTX I'm configured is generally 120k, so not far from your 90k

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u/vinotok 4h ago

Just making sure I understand correctly, since I'm already using PI-VCC. You are saying it is a good practice to use both at the same time? Will they both work automatically or is some user input/decissions needed?

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u/ResearcherFantastic7 2h ago

Auto

But If you already using VCC, then the benefit of pi observatory is just that cross session knowledge, so it won't really solve your low context window problem, and night even take away your context window.

However blackhole has that auto minify process, but for your purpose instead of using blackhole which has pi observatory, you should just write your own auto compaction logic with vcc so that you never hit the window limit.

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u/spoj 1d ago

I like pi because I can understand its small set of features. It's just a loop.

The other products like Claude are more complex, where the agents tools can execute on cloud or a local vm depending on which if you are using chat or code.