pi-readline-search

GNU Readline-style reverse history search for pi. Press Ctrl+R in the editor to revisit prompts and bash commands from the current branch history without leaving the editor.

Install

From local path

pi install ./

From git

pi install git:github.com/mrshu/pi-readline-search

Usage

1. Press Ctrl+R in the editor to open reverse search.
2. Type to filter the branch-local history index.
3. Press Ctrl+R or ↑ to move to older matches.
4. Press Ctrl+S or ↓ to move to newer matches.
5. Press Enter to insert the selected match, or Esc/Ctrl+G to cancel.

The index includes user prompts and bashExecution commands. Commands keep their pi prefixes as !command or !!command depending on context inclusion.

Configurable keybindings

Configure extension shortcuts in Pi's keybindings file (~/.pi/agent/keybindings.json, or PI_CODING_AGENT_DIR/keybindings.json when set):

{
  "readline-search.reverse-search": "ctrl+r",
  "readline-search.reverse-search-older": ["ctrl+r", "up"],
  "readline-search.reverse-search-newer": ["ctrl+s", "down"],
  "readline-search.reverse-search-accept": "enter",
  "readline-search.reverse-search-cancel": ["escape", "ctrl+g"],
  "readline-search.history-search-backward": "up",
  "readline-search.history-search-forward": "down"
}

Each value may be a string or an array of strings. Unset keys use the defaults shown above.

The up/down defaults are context-specific: in the main editor they trigger prefix-history search, while inside the reverse-search UI they navigate matches.

Pi may also use ctrl+r for renaming sessions. If that conflicts in your setup, either move Pi's rename-session shortcut to another key, such as ctrl+shift+r:

{
  "app.session.rename": "ctrl+shift+r"
}

Or keep Pi's rename-session shortcut on ctrl+r and rebind this extension's reverse search instead:

{
  "readline-search.reverse-search": "ctrl+shift+r",
  "readline-search.reverse-search-older": ["ctrl+shift+r", "up"]
}

With this config, pressing ↑/↓ in Pi replaces the editor contents with the previous/next prompt or ! bash command that starts with the current editor text.

Keybindings

Key	Action
readline-search.reverse-search	Open search
readline-search.reverse-search-older	Cycle older matches inside search
readline-search.reverse-search-newer	Cycle newer matches inside search
readline-search.reverse-search-accept	Accept selected match into the editor
readline-search.reverse-search-cancel	Cancel reverse search
readline-search.history-search-backward / readline-search.history-search-forward	Optional prefix-history search in the main editor

Troubleshooting

• If pi shows "No prompt history yet for reverse search.", there are no indexed prompts or bashExecution entries in this branch yet.
• Fresh branches can show no results until you create some prompt or command history.
• If Ctrl+R is intercepted by another tool, rebind readline-search.reverse-search in Pi's keybindings file.

Compatibility

• Works with pi extension loading via pi.extensions: ["./extensions"] and the entry file extensions/readline-search.ts.
• No extra OS-specific setup is required beyond a working pi environment.

Development

pi -e ./extensions/readline-search.ts

See CHANGELOG.md for release history.

Package manifest

This repo is a pi package via package.json:

• pi.extensions: ["./extensions"]
• Extension entry: extensions/readline-search.ts