Setting Up and Using the Pi Coding Agent

I have been using AI coding tools for a while now. At the time of writing this, I am subscribed to both Cursor and OpenAI Codex. They are great at what they do and I use them for most of my main project work. But over 2 weeks ago, I came across Pi – an open-source terminal coding agent. It has a small core and lets you add features through extensions and packages, instead of packing everything in by default. I liked the idea, so I decided to set it up and see where it fits. I am still figuring out the right balance, but Pi has already found a place for my side projects and experiments. In this post, I'll share how I installed it, what my setup looks like, and my honest experience so far. What is Pi? Pi is an open-source terminal coding agent created by Mario Zechner. It works in your terminal and gives the AI model four tools by default – read, write, edit, and bash – to work with your codebase. There is no built-in plan mode, no sub-agents, no MCP, and no permission popups. Instead,…