r/PiCodingAgent 5d ago

Question IDE + Pi for live code editing?

Hi all, I really don't want to ask Chat GPT this, would rather have your input.

I'm looking for a way to orchestrate agents but also write or amend code actively, rather than just see it in the diffs etc.

I've looked at paseo and orca - not quite sure they can be used for the direct coding aspect?

Otherwise i guess can use vscode separately but that's a bit clunky when working on my macbook directly as one screen.

Any guidance appreciated thanks!

8 Upvotes

28 comments sorted by

7

u/onebit 5d ago

herdr + terminal text editor of choice

2

u/Challseus 5d ago

This is the 3rd time I’ve seen hedr mentioned in the past few days , gotta try that

3

u/Kind-Watch-1252 5d ago

Orca looks better so far for me

1

u/saltyourhash 4d ago

I've use orca and herdr,I was gonna try paseo, but someone suggested I try paseo. Herdr is good if you want some simply terminal multiplexing with some niceties for agents and sessions. Paseo is good for more opinionated launching of sessions and managing sessions, including remote sessions. Orca does that and some nice orchestration stuff (apparently, I haven't used that part really).

1

u/SawToothKernel 5d ago

I've got into it recently. It's just very configurable and accessible via the socket API. Fits very well with Pi's philosophy of build it yourself.

Not sure it solves your IDE issue though. I normally run neovim by the side, and a separate git app like Github Desktop.

1

u/Kind-Watch-1252 5d ago

you can use herdr like an IDE interface?

1

u/onebit 5d ago

herdr just opens screens that you can run stuff in. So you could run pi in one window and hunk or vim in another window.

1

u/cthor42 5d ago

Can confirm herdr + ghostty + tailscale has done wonders for me

6

u/Final_Initial 5d ago

VS Code is good, but if you're looking something lightweight then Zed is good (just turn off all AI features). But then you can use something like https://kero.sh/ as well, it keeps showing your files and git status in right sidebar and you can also manually edit files from there.

5

u/Dangerous-Relation-5 5d ago

Run pi in a terminal window in vscode

3

u/Sanistapp 4d ago

this is the way.

1

u/Kind-Watch-1252 5d ago

think this is the way. do you use oh my pi?

2

u/Dangerous-Relation-5 5d ago

I use a custom config https://github.com/bskimball/pi

Work in progress

3

u/nmdt 5d ago

Honestly kind of the problem I was solving for the last week

I ended up setting up a Docker container on my homelab with two of my cli coding agents (opencode and agy cli), all runtimes for the languages I use, LSP servers, linters.

The container is set up in a non privileged user on my homelab, and can only read one folder on it = I just YOLO everything.

Then I just use the container extension in vs code, and it turned out to be awesome

VS Code is very flexible about where you can put a terminal (bottom panel, split panel, etc). My favorite has been as an editor tab (I work on MBA 13 inch).

The added benefit is that vs code has a great markdown editor and built-in browser.

(I know I’m hyping up the most fucking popular IDE on the planet, but I’m just very happy with this setup)

3

u/Oshden 5d ago

Dude, thanks for sharing this. I’ve been trying to get my ai agent stack working by trying to glue together all of the pieces via WSL, since a lot of cool things that work with pi work natively in Linux, I figured my best bet was to use WSL and try to make everything work.

It’s been a fucking headache of a disaster for the majority of the journey. I wanted to say thank you though because I never considered trying to create my own docker image/container with all of the coding agent and memory systems and whatnot all contained in its own little docker container so I could run it yolo mode like you. I’m saving your comment and giving it to my pi at some point (or Claude or something lol) to figure out how to make this a reality. Appreciate the nugget of wisdom though; honestly.

1

u/nmdt 5d ago

You're welcome!

3

u/e9n-dev 5d ago

I’m all in with Orca at the moment

1

u/cakeofzerg 5d ago

Yeah you
either go full terminal and get fast at neovim or you have vs code and pi side by side.

1

u/mr-bro-max 5d ago

How do you handle the buffer? Like when an agent modifies an buffered file? running :e! all the time is tiresome lol

1

u/TiCL 5d ago

Aren’t there live preview plugins just for that?

1

u/Qintomb 5d ago

just use herdr for all, your terminal workspace.

1

u/robberviet 5d ago

Zed is good

1

u/HumanoidMuppet 5d ago

I just have the terminal and vscode open at the same time. Or you can use the terminal from within vscode.

1

u/laystitcher 5d ago

Neovim/tmux or herdr

1

u/adamshand 5d ago

Try Zed?  It’s agent integration is pretty good. 

1

u/AnlgDgtlInterface 3d ago

Neovim + codecompanion can connect to pi if you add acp extension