[drob518]

That’s certainly doable, but then you need to create all the add-ons you would have added to Pi. IMO, Pi stands in that sweet spot between being very minimal while still offering a catalog of pluggable functionality that you can add to it. Sure, you could vibe code all those things for your custom agent as well, but why recreate what is essentially Pi all over again (the main loop with all the extension hooks, etc.)? Pi is the “standard” batteries-not-included agent, where you can add from a catalog of pre-defined batteries. I recommend starting with Pi and then using an LLM to code custom extensions where the catalog doesn’t have something you want.

[anonym29]

Pi has way too many batteries included, including a bunch I don't want, and lacked the batteries I did want. Pi is a bit like the movie Idiocracy in that the idea is much better than the execution.

Incidentally, I also have zero supply chain attack surface as I have zero dependencies in my agent, just go stdlib. Pi, again, has 130+ transitive dependencies asking me to trust the security of my system to 150+ additional people I've never met in exchange for a bunch of bloat I do not want.

[drob518]

Agreed that the node cesspool is a risk. That said, what batteries does Pi have that you don’t want?

[anonym29]

Bloated TUI library, unified multi-provider LLM layer, bloated RPC and SDK modes, the entire plugin framework, the list goes on and on.

For reference, pi-coding-agent, by itself (not including dependencies, tests, or pi-ai, pi-tui, pi-agent-core, etc), is ~41,653 SLOC taking up ~1658.9 KiB across 163 files.

My agent, excluding dependencies (all go stdlib) and tests, is 3 files, 946 SLOC, taking up 36.3 KiB, and includes a basic TUI and an XMPP transport channel (including TLS for XMPP), with dynamically configurable delivery to and receipt from either or both, including allowlists for XMPP message partners. It has tool calling, a permission model with whitelisting and interactive permission querying on a per-tool basis, full thinking support, including the ability to toggle hiding or showing it across either or both transports repeatedly throughout an individual session, the same tools as pi comes with out of the box, plus web search, and a tool to vet, build, and git commit golang projects all in one go, stopping if errors are observed. Configurable model and endpoint, too.

Incidentally, the open source xmpp server (prosody) and metasearch engine (SearXNG) are both self-hosted, too.

[drob518]

Sure, if your fundamental issue is “bloat,” you can always write a less general-purpose system that is smaller. No doubt about that.

[anonym29]

I guess better phrasing would be auditability, ease of codebase comprehension, coverage of just the features I want. My agent isn't meant to be for X users across Y providers with Z extensible plugins, it's meant for exactly one user, with exactly one provider, and to minimize the amount of trust granted to third parties.

[drob518]

Got it. Yea, if those are your priorities then it certainly makes sense to write your own.