{"slug": "show-hn-sidequest-is-a-better-btw-for-pi", "title": "Show HN: Sidequest is a better /btw for Pi", "summary": "Sidequest, a new extension for the Pi AI agent, provides a side channel for context-aware questions without disrupting the main conversation. It offers threaded, persistent, and tool-capable interactions, and can be installed via npm or GitHub.", "body_md": "Sidequest gives [Pi](https://pi.dev) a side channel: ask context-aware questions without pulling the main conversation off track.\n\nThink of it as a better `/btw`\n\n: grounded in the active Pi session, threaded, persistent, and tool-capable.\n\nFrom npm:\n\n```\npi install npm:pi-sidequest\n```\n\nFrom GitHub:\n\n```\npi install git:github.com/peterp/pi-sidequest\n```\n\nFor local development:\n\n```\npi -e /absolute/path/to/pi-sidequest\n```\n\nOr link `src/`\n\nas an auto-discovered extension directory:\n\n```\nln -s /absolute/path/to/pi-sidequest/src ~/.pi/agent/extensions/sidequest\n```\n\nOpen Sidequest inside Pi:\n\n```\n/sidequest\n```\n\nDefault quake console keys:\n\n```\n§\n~\n```\n\nSidequest has two focus areas:\n\n- selection: choose root or a thread\n- prompt: type and ask the next question\n\nPress `Tab`\n\nto move between them. The inactive area shows `[tab]`\n\nin its border.\n\nUse an env var:\n\n```\nPI_SIDEQUEST_QUAKE_KEY='`'\n```\n\nor a config file:\n\n```\n// ~/.pi/agent/sidequest.json\n{\n  \"quakeKey\": \"`\"\n}\n```\n\nMultiple keys are supported:\n\n```\nPI_SIDEQUEST_QUAKE_KEYS='§,~,alt+s'\n{\n  \"quakeKeys\": [\"§\", \"~\", \"alt+s\"]\n}\n```\n\nSidequest runs its own isolated, tool-capable Pi worker. By default it enables:\n\n```\nread, grep, find, ls, sidequest_web_search, sidequest_web_fetch\n```\n\nOverride the allowlist:\n\n```\nPI_SIDEQUEST_TOOLS='read,grep,find,ls,sidequest_web_search,sidequest_web_fetch'\n```\n\n`sidequest_web_search`\n\nuses Brave Search when `BRAVE_SEARCH_API_KEY`\n\nis set. Otherwise it falls back to DuckDuckGo HTML search. `sidequest_web_fetch`\n\nfetches public HTTP(S) pages and extracts readable text.\n\nFrom this directory:\n\n```\nnpm pack --dry-run\nnpm publish\n```\n\n", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-sidequest-is-a-better-btw-for-pi", "canonical_source": "https://github.com/peterp/pi-sidequest", "published_at": "2026-06-29 09:06:36+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-29 09:28:28.070443+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-tools", "developer-tools"], "entities": ["Pi", "Sidequest", "Brave Search", "DuckDuckGo"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-sidequest-is-a-better-btw-for-pi", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-sidequest-is-a-better-btw-for-pi.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-sidequest-is-a-better-btw-for-pi.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/show-hn-sidequest-is-a-better-btw-for-pi.jsonld"}}