Pi: The Reusable Prompt Template

The Stack

Tested Against

Prerequisites

• Pi (MIT): `npm install -g --ignore-scripts @earendil-works/pi-coding-agent`
• A model key/subscription (only needed to run the template)

Steps

1. 1

   Scaffold the template at Pi's prompt-discovery path

   CI writes the commit-message template to Pi's documented prompts directory (`<config>/prompts/commitmsg.md`, default `~/.pi/agent/prompts/`) and confirms it lands non-empty and that Pi's print mode flag exists — the deterministic half of 'a file becomes a permanent command.'

   export PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR="$PWD/.pi"
   pi --version >/dev/null || { echo "pi missing"; exit 1; }
   mkdir -p "$PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR/prompts"
   cat > "$PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR/prompts/commitmsg.md" <<'EOF'
   Write a Conventional Commits message for the staged diff below.
   Output only the commit message, nothing else.
   EOF
   test -s "$PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR/prompts/commitmsg.md" && echo "template scaffolded: prompts/commitmsg.md"
   test -r "$PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR/prompts/commitmsg.md" && echo "template path resolves for: git diff --staged | pi -p @prompts/commitmsg.md"
   pi --help 2>&1 | grep -q -- "--print" && echo "pi supports -p print mode"

2. 2

   Use it (the model step, not checked by CI)

   Interactively type `/commitmsg`, or non-interactively `git diff --staged | pi -p @~/.pi/agent/prompts/commitmsg.md`. Templates also support `{{variables}}`. The text it generates is the model's job, so CI doesn't run it.