pi-ghost-in-the-machine

A tiny GSL SHader ASCII face floating in Herdr's side panel. It follows Pi agent state changes and disappears when its pane is no longer relevant.

demo-ghost-in-the-machine.mov

Requirements

• Pi 0.80.4+
• Ghostty 1.3+
• Node 22.19+, Bash, pgrep, and jq
• Herdr 0.7.4+ for focused-pane and sidebar routing (optional)

Install

pi install git:github.com/iurysza/pi-ghost-in-the-machine
~/.pi/agent/git/github.com/iurysza/pi-ghost-in-the-machine/scripts/setup.sh

Then reload Pi:

/reload

The setup script adds the stable Ghostty state fragment, links the Herdr plugin when available, and selects idle. A Pi session started inside Herdr starts its per-socket watcher. For manual setup, runtime files, and diagnosis, see the engineering map.

Lifecycle and commands

idle -> thinking -> working -> done; a failed tool settles on error. Shutdown, non-Pi focus, or a collapsed Herdr sidebar selects off. Visible states remain for at least two seconds so Ghostty can compile the selected shader.

Command	Action
/ghost-idle, /ghost-thinking, /ghost-working, /ghost-done, /ghost-error	Force a visible state
/ghost-off / /ghost-on	Hide or restore the desired state
/ghost-disable	Disable automatic transitions for this Pi session
/ghost-status	Show extension, sidebar, watcher, and shader state

Development

npm install
npm run generate
npm run check
npm test
npm pack --dry-run

Edit shaders/ghost-in-the-machine.glsl, then commit every regenerated file under shaders/variants/. Architecture, lifecycle, watcher protocol, diagnostics, performance, and release checks live in the engineering docs.

Shout out

Huge thanks to isoden/claude-terminal-face for the work on this concept and the shaders. See NOTICE and LICENSE.