pi-time-context

A Pi agent extension that gives conversations wall-clock context — sparse, stable, and quiet.

pi-time-context attaches a small timestamp block to outbound user messages and tool results at intervals — just enough for the model to always know the real time, without stamping every message:

⟦TIME event=user_message_sent at=2026-08-22T14:15+08:00 idle=2h15m⟧

Your original message or tool result...

How it works

When the first message of a session is sent, it receives a baseline stamp marking the session start. After that, a stamp is added only once a 10-minute window (configurable) has passed, attached to the next outbound user message or tool result.

• Sparse by design — a few well-placed stamps give the model a sense of real time without filling its context with timestamp noise; if you truly want a stamp on every message, one option turns it on.
• Idle-aware — when the previous assistant or tool activity ended more than 30 minutes ago (configurable), a user message stamp also includes idle=2h15m, telling the model the conversation has a gap.
• Deterministic — each stamp's time and idle duration are frozen the first time a message is sent. Retries, /resume, /reload, /fork, /clone, and /tree reproduce identical timestamps, and already-sent context never changes, keeping prompt caches warm.
• Visible, not intrusive — the model sees the stamps; you see them too, as a dim one-line marker in the chat UI. Session data is never touched; the only system-prompt change is one fixed line explaining the annotation format.

Installation

pi install npm:@sevten/pi-time-context

Usage

Nothing to set up. In the chat UI, each stamped message shows a dim marker under it, for example:

sent_at 14:15 +08:00 · User idle for 2h15m

That marker mirrors exactly what the model received — nothing extra is written into the session file. After a compaction drops the session's early messages, the summary carries a ⟦TIME event=context_summary_created covers_from=... covers_until=...⟧ annotation so the model still knows when the session began and when the covered activity ended.

Configuring with /time-config

There are two ways to configure, both writing to the global config file (~/.pi/agent/pi-time-context.json) and taking effect right away — subsequent messages are stamped by the new settings, while already-stamped messages keep their original stamps.

Interactive menu — run /time-config without arguments:

  Stamp a timestamp every   10 min
  Show idle gap after       30 min idle
  Show times in             local

  enter select  ·  esc back

• Stamp a timestamp every — presets (5, 10, 15, 30, 60, 120 min), Every message, or a custom value. Picking a concrete interval switches every-message mode off, and vice versa.
• Show idle gap after — minimum idle gap before idle= is added to user message stamps.
• Show times in — local, UTC, or any IANA time zone (Asia/Shanghai); custom values are typed inline.

Text commands:

/time-config show                     current config, next checkpoint, recent stamps
/time-config interval <minutes|every>  set the interval, or "every" for every-message mode
/time-config threshold <minutes>
/time-config tz <IANA|local|UTC>

Development

npm ci --ignore-scripts
npm run validate

npm run validate runs the TypeScript check, the Vitest suite, and an npm package dry run.

License

MIT