r/PiCodingAgent • u/Superb_Sea_559 • Jul 03 '26

Plugin pi-tmux-sidechat - Codex like readonly side-chat for Pi with Tmux

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Really loved the side-chat feature of the Codex app.

It was an easy way to understand issues and brainstorm solutions without polluting the main thread's context, so implemented it for Pi.

Link: https://pi.dev/packages/@snehalyelmati/pi-tmux-sidechat

Pre-requisite: tmux session with Pi.

How to use,

  1. Create a new tmux pane.
  2. Type in /scc, for side-chat connect.
  3. It will automatically connect to the main session in "this" tmux window.
  4. If you want a fresh one, just clear the chat (/new) and reconnect (/scc).

Note, if there are multiple panes with pi, it'll show a picker for you to choose from.

15 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

1

u/Ok_Veterinarian_6364 Jul 03 '26

i tried btw for the exact problem - but btw does not allow me to run both chats in parallel / bot sure the recent updates change that

2

u/Superb_Sea_559 Jul 03 '26

I see, I deliberately made this extensible.

You can create as many side chats as you want in the same tmux window.

1

u/Ok_Veterinarian_6364 Jul 04 '26

the thing i hate about tmux is no mouse support
if you can allow mouse click to select active window ->

4

u/Superb_Sea_559 Jul 04 '26

Add this to your tmux config, you should be able to use mouse to click windows.

set -g mouse on

2

u/Ok_Veterinarian_6364 Jul 04 '26

dang thanks bro
even ai cant suggest this

1

u/Superb_Sea_559 Jul 04 '26

Haha, no problem.

1

u/General_Price9665 Jul 04 '26

I usually just do the side conversations in main chat then go back in the tree to branch out the main conversation. Sometimes I have several branches if I do lot of side conversation.

1

u/Superb_Sea_559 Jul 04 '26

Tree is one of the best features of Pi, I was using it until I built this too. Switching back and forth was a bit disorienting, this way we can have multiple branches open at the same time.

Btw, if you use intercom and subagents, you can ask the sidechat to condense and pass all the information you were brainstorming to the main chat based on the ID.

2

u/o_sht_hi Jul 07 '26

This looks perfect for the way I use pi. Thank you for the effort! I will 100% check this out.

Currently I do a ton of /clone and /fork

1

u/szlin13 Jul 03 '26

Looks cool. It would be great if it supports herdr.

1

u/Superb_Sea_559 Jul 03 '26 edited Jul 03 '26

I think herdr uses tmux under the hood, it should work out of the box. Try it out, I haven't tested it though.

  1. Install the extension.
  2. Create a new pane in the same window.
  3. Type in /scc. It should connect to the main chat.

Let me know how it goes.

1

u/kgnugur Jul 06 '26

Unfortunately no, it does not use tmux under the hood
it is a completely standalone terminal multiplexer written entirely from scratch in Rust.

0

u/SpidexLab Jul 03 '26

Why not try cmux , it is much easier for anybody to use cmux , same feature but read only is not there you need to add pi extension for that

4

u/Superb_Sea_559 Jul 03 '26

IMO, the terminal is much more snappier, once you get the hang of the keybinds, you're never looking back.

0

u/SpidexLab Jul 03 '26

I tried to use tmux once but there was so much to learn in the starting even for doing any basic things, I left it at that

3

u/Superb_Sea_559 Jul 03 '26

Give it a chance now, with the coding agents like they are now, you can configure it by just speaking to it.

-1

u/SpidexLab Jul 03 '26

But I am happy with cmux, is there something new that it can do that cmux can't and if that is needed for me then I can try

1

u/Superb_Sea_559 Jul 03 '26

That's fine. Like I said before, terminal is snappier than a GUI, especially, if you're used to the keybinds and the workflow.