Connect pi (pi.dev)

pi is a minimal, extensible terminal coding agent. It has no built-in MCP support by design; MCP comes from an extension. The most complete one is pi-mcp-adapter, which connects to remote streamable-HTTP servers like vibeD and exposes their tools through a single lightweight proxy tool.

1. Install the adapter

pi install npm:pi-mcp-adapter

This registers the extension in ~/.pi/agent/settings.json. Add -l to install it for the current project only (.pi/settings.json).

2. Point it at vibeD

pi-mcp-adapter reads a standard mcpServers config. Global config goes in ~/.config/mcp/mcp.json; a project can add or override servers in .mcp.json (shared with other MCP clients, e.g. Claude Code) or .pi/mcp.json (pi-only).

Dev install (auth disabled):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vibed": {
      "url": "http://localhost:8080/mcp"
    }
  }
}

Production install with an API key: keep the token in an environment variable, the adapter expands ${VAR}:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "vibed": {
      "url": "https://vibed.example.com/mcp",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${VIBED_API_KEY}"
      },
      "lifecycle": "lazy"
    }
  }
}

lifecycle controls when the adapter opens the connection: lazy (the default, on first tool call), eager (at startup), keep-alive, or lazy-keep-alive. lazy is fine for vibeD; deploys are infrequent and the first call adds only a few hundred milliseconds.

Same file as Claude Code

If the repo already has an .mcp.json for Claude Code, pi picks it up unchanged: same mcpServers key, same url/headers shape, same ${VAR} expansion. One file serves both agents.

3. Verify

Start pi in the project and run:

/mcp            # connection status per server
/mcp tools      # tool names the adapter discovered, expect deploy_artifact, list_artifacts, …

If vibeD uses OIDC instead of an API key, /mcp-auth vibed runs the OAuth flow against the authorization server vibeD advertises at /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource.

4. Deploy

> Deploy the site in ./dist to vibeD and tell me the URL.

The adapter routes the call to deploy_artifact; pi prints the returned URL once the app is Ready. "Show the logs", "update it with my latest changes", "delete it" map to get_artifact_logs, update_artifact and delete_artifact; see the MCP tools reference.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Fix
/mcp shows vibed disconnected with 401	Auth is on and the header is missing, or VIBED_API_KEY isn't exported in pi's shell
Connection refused	curl http://localhost:8080/readyz: vibeD isn't up, or the URL in the config is wrong
Tools listed but a deploy returns TemplateMissing	Enable the warm pool: local dev → warm pools
Changed the config, nothing happened	/mcp reconnect vibed

Alternatives

• @ineersa/my-pi-mcp-adapter: a simpler adapter; reads ~/.pi/agent/mcp.json / .pi/mcp.json with the same mcpServers shape.
• pi-codemode-mcp: exposes MCP servers to pi as callable code rather than tools; experimental.
• No extension at all: pi can call vibeD's HTTP API with curl from its bash tool, if you'd rather not add MCP.