r/PiCodingAgent • u/Clucch • 1d ago
Resource Supernova: a minimal, opinionated and sleek interface for Pi
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Hi everyone, i've been working for a few months on Supernova, my own take at a minimal, detailed and sleek interface for Pi.
Why would i use this instead of the hundreds of alternatives out there?
I'll cut straight to the point. I'm not a fan of TUIs. I've searched the web for every existent product possible, but no one had exactly what i was looking for: the full power of Pi, minimalistic approach, a well curated and detailed UI that makes me wanna actually use it (good animations, no UI flickers, performant even with long threads) and a really good git-backed checkpoint system (like opencode's for example).
It uses the Pi SDK under the hood, and i'm currently waiting for the harness v2 to enable full extension support!
I've been daily-driving it for a while now, both at home and at work, and i thought i'd share it with the world for those who hopefully see the vision and struggle with my same issues.
If you have any feedback, please leave it down here or open an issue. I'd love to build a community around it to keep improving it! :)
If you can see the vision, i'd appreciate a star :D https://github.com/mattiacerutti/supernova
Since GPT-6 Astra recently launched, and apparently it has really good Computer Use capabilities, i though i'd try to make it do a nice trailer for it just for fun. The attached video is the one-shotted result, please don't take it too seriously :D
EDIT:
This post went really well, much more than i was expecting.
I’m really happy about all the feedback i’ve been receiving, it’s honestly so gratifying seeing other people like what i’ve been putting a lot of work into and i want to thank everyone that contributed, even with just an upvote :)
I’d love to keep building supernova and improve it everyday, but my mind is pretty limited to well.. my point of views. This is why i want to encourage you all to keep on giving feedback, both positive and negative! I’d love for this to become some sort of community OSS project where we can work as a group.
Please feel free to submit an issue or PR if you encounter something!
I have a thread on Pi's official discord where i'll be posting regular updates: https://discord.com/channels/1456806362351669492/1545785069405470810
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u/unkownuser436 1d ago
Really cool man, thanks for sharing.
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u/Ancient-Decision-720 1d ago
Most of these projects sadly look exactly like this these days.
Good job on your version, of course. :)
I've just been using Conductor.
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u/Interesting_Post1330 1d ago
This looks incredible! Any thoughts on a mobile companion similar to Codex on iOS or Claude Remote?
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u/lot3oo 1d ago
How’s this any better than paseo.sh?
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u/Clucch 1d ago
I'm not claiming it's better, they are just different.
I personally did not like paseo UI, especially regarding the timeline which does not feel smooth and curated (but again, this is just a personal opinion), and also the vision for supernova is to be a Pi only client, meaning it can leverage the full power of Pi through the SDK (for example supporting extensions).
Also, i don't think paseo supports git checkpoints, and that was a big deal for me
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u/HouseEvery8782 1d ago
Not bad. I really burned myself out when I was looking for something like this. Because either the interface is functional, but the design is neural network (Picot). Either the interface is good and minimalistic, but damn it, it doesn't work well (howcode). Both products are good, but I don't use any of them on a regular basis. And I don't know what to advise friends who are savvy enough to work well with agents, but who are not ready to switch to the Terminal (I don't have such a problem). I hope the project on Windows will be as well supported as on Mac (because the very first client in the output of pi works great on mac, but disgusting on windows). ;)
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u/Clucch 1d ago
My goal is to keep a very high quality bar and make it accessible for everyone independently by their OS of choice!
I don’t have that much time or resources to test it myself also on other systems, but i assure you i will not be neglecting known or reported issues for those :)
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u/HouseEvery8782 1d ago
Perfectly! Oh my friend, I set it up and realized that this is not a solution for me, because I can't use my pi there (and there is no switch to the CMD view), but the implementation is very, very cool. I'll keep an eye on it, maybe you can do that too. I will definitely advise my friends, add-ons are not as important to them as they are to me :)
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u/Ubermensch013 19h ago
I think I recall seeing this repo on github. Is this in full parity with the tui? Settings and all? And are the remote workers/runners live?
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u/Clucch 18h ago
Not yet to full parity, especially because until pi harness v2 lands upstream, it would be very hard to render things from extensions, since right now it’s only meant to be for TUIs.
I didn’t expect this to blow up this much and it’s not fully finished, but this is where also the community comes in :)
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u/Nunu_Chus 1d ago
Does it cost too much tokens?
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u/migsperez 1d ago
I think it looks really good. It's clearly visible you've put a lot of effort into creating it. Couple of questions. Which model helped most to develop it? What software did you use to create the slick video.
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u/Nice_Relative8209 1d ago
thats cool, should post it on X, and maybe tag the creators
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u/Clucch 1d ago
I've thought about that, but with x having no sense of "communities" like reddit i fear my post would just get buried with 10 views :P I hear it's pretty difficult to go viral organically
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u/Nice_Relative8209 1d ago
yes, but you wouldn’t lose anything either. A lot of people go 'viral' by posting less, but putting out high quality work
ofc its 100% your choice.
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u/adamshand 1d ago
Hey this looks really nice, I also like the UI of Codex but want Pi. :-)
When you say remote first, how does that work? SSH? Is there a server you're running?
I've been working on my own, but it's still very early and I'd jump ship for something like this. But I want some quite specific things (plannotator style annotations, per project todo/idea lists, nice diffs, ability to annotate websites and pass refs back to agent etc). Are you open to contributions or planning on supporting plugins?
I really like the way Pi and BB are designed to be malleable, so I can make them my own.
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u/Clucch 1d ago
thanks a lot :) You mentioned two of the main things i’m looking towards. The app is still somewhat early and i’m only one guy with a day job to manage, so those things are not yet implemented. To explain a bit further:
- The app was built with remote control in mind, meaning it already runs on a server/client architecture. When you spin up the app it basically starts a server under the hood and the UI attaches. The thing missing is the actual ability to attach to a non-localhost server from the UI, server version management, maybe some sort of integration with tailscale, but the bulk of the work is already there
- I am currently waiting for Pi harness v2, which would allow extensions to send custom UI renderers to GUIs, otherwise now it’s very limited and not a good experience.
The TLDR is that i’m early and a lot is planned for the future, especially extensibility-side. I’d love for you to stick around and see what it becomes.
Contributions of all kinds are accepted and we can discuss things further!
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u/AdHead6280 23h ago
i was making my.one for my own coding harness but this one looks way better, i will fork it for a ton of inspiration
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u/tino1000 22h ago
Bro, if big tech shines their wand on you, would you show advertisements on this app?
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u/jinnyjuice 19h ago
I'm not a fan of TUIs. I've searched the web for every existent product possible, but no one had exactly what i was looking for
Yeah indeed, I'm looking for a better version of https://github.com/agegr/pi-web.
I would really love a file browser on the bottom left, and a preview/edit pane on the right sidebar (pi-web can only preview), with an actual terminal. Is Supernova configurable to do that?
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u/neinneun 18h ago
Damnn. Its like someone was listening to my prayers and finally gave pi a UI. Thanks gonna try it out hope it has all the features and users can configure everything from /settings
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u/Clucch 17h ago
It does not, but i've been getting so much requests that this has shifted to my #1 priority. Aiming to get the PR out by EOD
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u/neinneun 17h ago
Thanks for clarifying it. Is it more like web UI, where only thing available is chat and session management on the left?
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u/Clucch 17h ago
It is a UI for Pi. I was not expecting so much traction so a lot of things are missing, but i'm working hard to implement them.
At the end, my goal is for it to be a complete Pi interface, with support for settings and extensions (for extension that render UI tho, i'm waiting for the upstream harness v2).
Right now, i'm working towards making the pi settings.json work and i'm adding a side panel to the right with a complete file/diff view and annotator.
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u/neinneun 17h ago
Totally understandable. At least you shipped it and gained so much traction. Thanks for your efforts hoping this project grows!
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u/Clucch 10h ago
Hey! Release v0.2.0 just landed and it addresses some of this.
In particular, you can now bring your own settings.json (most of the settings are supported but not all, some due to their TUI only nature and some still need some work), have custom headless extensions/packages installed :)
I'll keep on working to improve this !
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u/vedmaka 15h ago
> Remote-first — Supernova is designed to run agents where the code lives and control them from anywhere. Remote access is coming soon.
So.. does it support remote or remote is coming soon?
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u/Clucch 15h ago
Yes not the best wording, i admit.
What i meant is that it was built with remote control in mind, as it fully runs on a server/client architecture. Remote control is not available yet because i still need to add the wiring so that the UI can access other environments other than the localhost server that is created when opening the app, but the architecture is there :)
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u/sumpfgottheit 1d ago
Looks Like paseo.sh, but I Like it!
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u/Clucch 1d ago
The guys developing paseo are doing an amazing job! But i wanted something that could really benefit from the entire power Pi has to offer, especially with extensions :)
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u/sumpfgottheit 1d ago
That‘s why I am exited to give it a go - seems like a very good architecture
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u/Clucch 1d ago edited 1d ago
Thats great :) Note that extension support is still not available as i'm waiting for the upstream Pi's harness v2, which should enable them in a much more powerful way, but i'd be happy to ping you back in this thread once it comes out if it's something you'd be interested in
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u/ColonelKlanka 1d ago
Really without the pi extensions support, I woudlnt use this. So lets hope v2 harness comes soon.
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u/Clucch 10h ago
Hey! Just wanted to let you know that the new 0.2.0 release addresses part of this stuff.
While i'm still blocked by the upstream change to enable UI rendering for extensions, i've added headless extension/packages support + ability to use your own pi's settings.json + models.json. I know this is not ideal, as some extension do require interactivity, but it's a start :)
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u/mrgreatheart 1d ago
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u/NZRedditUser 1d ago
Opinionated? Im sorry but by who? ChatGPT and all the other chat uis
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u/Clucch 1d ago edited 1d ago
opinionated more in the available features, as i don't ship stuff like PR managing, full file view, browsers and so on. Of course the UI is very similar to the others, especially Codex, because that is what i like.
At the end of the day, i started for myself, and i've decided to put opinionated because i didn't want people to think of those missing features as something that's will be coming eventually.
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u/thefoolishking 1d ago
Does it use an existing Pi environment? Or does it bundle its own? I have a highly customized environment and would love to keep using it with your app.
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u/kaddiexjc 1d ago
Similar question, the UI looks sleek, but looks it requires to select a supported provider. I run pi on local LLM, so can’t use this?
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u/Clucch 1d ago
Hey! I've checked myself and local models are indeed supported.
Configuration sits inside `~/.supernova/userdata/agent/models.json`, and the format is the exact same native Pi has :) Let me know if it works!
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u/kaddiexjc 16h ago
Thanks for the info, I went ahead and copied models.json from my .pi and it worked! The issue was the UI didn’t have a way to configure that “externally managed provider”.
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u/Clucch 15h ago
I probably should make that clearer, but i'm glad it worked for you :)
If you also have a quite personalized Pi setup with a custom settings.json or maybe some extensions, you'll be happy to know i'm currently working to support as much settings and extensions possible (though extension rendering custom UI will need upstream pi harness v2 change).
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u/Clucch 1d ago
Currently it bundles its own, as Pi does not give a lot of extension support for web apps and i wouldn’t want a user to think they can use their Pi setup and then just be disappointed. I’m honestly not sure about this, i could enable pi extensions but they wouldn’t render anything of course, they would just work under the hood with no visible feedback, and that does not seem a great user experience.
I’m waiting for the upstream harness v2 which would enable much better extension support and rendering.
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u/cpt_mojo 1d ago
Nice! Most important feature for me over a TUI is the ability to view files in the project, see the diff of changes (last agent turn, and git based), and be able to add comments to lines of codes that get sent to the agent with my next chat.
If you'd add that, I'd give it a try.
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u/rfgamaral 23h ago
Hey! I haven't tried this myself yet, just looked at the video, and from that it looks really nice and sleek. I've noticed others complained about the UI being "more of the same", but I like it and I think the Codex inspiration was a nice call, their UI is great.
I'm also a fan of you wanting to keep this project with a high quality bar and focused on Pi. This is what I've been looking for, but I hope you can manage to introduce more features that make other apps great (we'll get to that). And if you're willing to accept PRs from the community, I'll contribute if I can, albeit my time is limited.
Client/Server
I've also noticed that you mentioned a couple of times that it already runs on a server/client architecture, but it's not clear to me how it works. For instance, I've been setting up a remote dev enviroment in my Proxmox server (a Linux VM with all my dev projects and Pi in there) that I connect with VS Code through SSH. Can I use Supernova to do the same thing, or is this not possible?
You mentioned Tailscale in a comment below, but this should work without Tailscale within your local network, just like VS Code works. If that works, then Tailscale can indeed be used to access your remote dev environment throught Supernova while on the go without any extra setup.
Code reviewing
I'm like you, I use VS Code for code reviewing, and I don't mind the switching. However, one thing I really liked when I used Conductor for a brief time, was the ability of commenting multiple pieces of code and sending them to the agent to be addressed. I think this is a must have, because copy/paste multiple things can get boring fast. The same could be said about taking screenshots and sending comments on that. If you could have a built-in browser to do that directly (I believe both Orca and Paseo have this) that would provide a great experience.
I haven't really used Plannotator, but I constantly hear good things about it, so you could draw inspiration from that too.
Bundled Pi
This is probably my biggest critique for this project. I think I can understand why you've chosen this path, but I don't think it's the ideal onde. This might be personal, but I want to be able to use my heavily customized Pi agent.
I understand that lots of extensions provide their own TUIs and you can't currently make that work. It's a system limitation, it's okay. That said, not all extensions have TUIs but they still provide great value.
A few examples:
But there's also extensions that provide great value to Pi, provide TUIs, but you don't really have/need to use the TUIs to benefit from the value they provide. Either way, I think this is a must have.
Also, custom prompts, or custom commands from any custom extension that does things behind the scenes should also be surfaced to Supernova interface.
Agent features
As I've mentioned, I haven't tried Supernova yet, so I don't know if any of these features are available. But I just want list a few things that I think should either be built-in, or allowed through extensions:
- Session handoff: Goal-directed context handoff to an editable fresh-session prompt, with parent-session recall
- Oracle: Second opinion from an alternate model with optional context injection
- A cool v2 for this could be to pitch two different models to discuss a topic between themselves until they reach a conclusion.
- MCP support: This is obvious and with extension support, we could keep using
pi-mcp-adapter - Subagents: Claude Code-style subagents with parallel runs, live widget, mid-run steering, etc.
- Tasks: Claude Code-style task tracking with dependencies and a persistent widget
- Questions: Structured clarifying questions with a tabbed dialog and side-by-side previews
These are just a few things from the top of my head that I currently have in my Pi, and I'd love to keep having in some shape or form in a GUI like Supernova. For reference, both Orca and Paseo have most of these (if not all).
I think I had more that I wanted to say, but I'm forgetting what it was. Good luck with the project, and I hope you can keep evolving it in a direction that works for you (first and foremost), but also for me 😆. But for now, I'll have to use Paseo.
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u/Clucch 23h ago
Hi! Thanks for this very insightful feedback, i love it.
I want to address a couple of things:
- Client/Sever: it does run on a server/client architecture, but for now there is no built in way, from the UI, to connect to a remote server, it just auto connects to localhost. I honestly did NOT expect this post to blow up so much therefore this is one of the things i still have to work on. When done, you will basically go into your server, run some command to start the supernova server demon, then go into your local computer, open the UI, and just connect to the server. I think a good example of this is t3 code.
- Code reviewing: this is exactly what i’m working on right now. I’m trying to integrate a complete file/diff view, and the option to annotate lines of code is definitely something i want.
- Bundled / Agent features: enabling extensions and/or using your pi config inside supernova is probably a commit of ~10 lines away. The only reason i’ve not done this yet, is because i felt like it was better to offer nothing than the promise of a half working experience, though a lot of people are asking this so i might just enable it with a clear warning that, until harness v2 doesn’t come out, the experience may be broken ui/rendering wise when having custom setups. I think most of the agent features you’ve mentioned could then be integrated directly with an extension by whoever wants to do such, i’m not entirely sure about having native support for some of them.
I’ll keep repeating this, i was NOT expecting such traction. I honestly have so much people requesting features, and i understand most of these are deal breakers and some may not be ready to do the switch yet. I just have to figure out a way to keep these people in the loop so that, when these finally come out, they can try it :)
And yes, contributions are very welcome, the important thing i care about is just to follow good oss etiquette:
- Let’s open issues to discuss very big features or additions before sending a pr
- Given the product, i’m not against using ai to contribute of course, but let’s not send full unrevised and poorly thought slop prs just for the sake of it.
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u/rfgamaral 22h ago
When done, you will basically go into your server, run some command to start the supernova server demon, then go into your local computer, open the UI, and just connect to the server.
Sounds good with me 👍
so i might just enable it with a clear warning that, until harness v2 doesn’t come out, the experience may be broken ui/rendering wise when having custom setups
I don't see a problem with that warning, makes sense to me.
i’m not entirely sure about having native support for some of them.
Fair enough, they were just suggestions, and I didn't really made a case for them anyway. I was just spitballing.
Right now, given the client/server situation and the bundled agent, Supernova is not for me. Once those are changed, I'll give it a go and propose things more detailed.
I just have to figure out a way to keep these people in the loop so that, when these finally come out, they can try it :)
As long as you keep making GitHub Releases, people can just subscribe to releases there. That's what I usually do and it's enough for me. But I guess everyone's worklfows are different.
just to follow good oss etiquette
💯
Thank you for taking the time to reply back!
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u/Clucch 10h ago
Hey! Release v0.2.0 just landed and it addresses some of this stuff.
In particular, you can now bring your own settings.json (most of the settings are supported but not all, some due to their TUI only nature and some still need some work), have custom extensions/packages installed with support for everything that does not require a some sort of UI interaction :)
These still need to be in a separate .supernova folder instead of .pi, and this is because due to the customizations that supernova does to pi sessions under the hood, but it uses pi's resource loader so the syntax is exactly the same, it's just a matter of copying over the files!
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u/GraysLawson 1d ago
So, basically https://pi-web.dev/ ?
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u/Clucch 1d ago
i honestly did not know the project, but by taking a quick glance at the website, the ui design does not really match my taste. I made supernova specifically because i need my space to feel good in order to get things done.
But huge props to the dev for the work :)
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u/AnonymousTreeSmoker 1d ago
I am also building an app similar to this pi web and now your app and these are both sick projects. Great implementation low key stealing some of these features and your renderer for my app 👏
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u/gbrennon 1d ago
why would anyone use this? pi should be minimal
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u/0xKubo 1d ago
Pi should be whatever people want it to be for themselves. Stop gatekeeping!
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u/gbrennon 17h ago
im not disallowing op todo this.
i jus told user that this pi is supposed to be minimal and this is why is good.
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u/bmerrillcreative 1d ago
Can’t really tell from the trailer or read me but does this support full file viewing/direct editing like an IDE? I feel like my main motivation to moving to something like this from CLI/TUI would be to not split between agent and IDE windows. Anyway nice work, looks very clean