pi-approve-diffs

Approve, decline, or steer every file change before it happens — with syntax-highlighted diffs.

A pi extension that gates pi's file-mutating tools (write, edit, hashline_edit, apply_patch) behind a review step. Nothing touches disk until you say so.

──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 approve-diffs +1 -1 · edit · src/app.ts

   function greet(name: string) {
 -   console.log("hello " + name);
 +   console.log(`hello, ${name}!`);
     return name.length;
   }

 ❯ ▐ Approve                 ▌ y
   ▐ Approve all (session)   ▌ a
   ▐ Decline                 ▌ n
   ▐ Steer — type guidance   ▌ s

 tab unified · j/k scroll · PgUp/PgDn page
──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────

The diff renders with a dark background and green/red only on changed lines — no giant colored slab. After you approve, the change lands and the result renders as a green-highlighted box in the transcript (toggleable, see below).

Examples

Install

pi install git:https://github.com/flatala/pi-approve-diffs

Then restart pi (or /reload). Requires pi with extension support (≥ 0.84).

To install from a local clone instead:

pi install ~/pi-approve-diffs

The approval modal

Appears docked at the bottom of the screen, right where you type. Every file change stops here first.

Key	Action
↑ ↓	move between actions
Enter	confirm the selected action
y / a / n / s	hotkeys: approve / approve-all-session / decline / steer
Tab	toggle split ↔ unified diff view
j k / PgUp PgDn b Space / Home End	scroll the diff
Esc	decline

Steer declines the change and sends your typed guidance back to the agent ("declined, follow this instead: …"), so you can redirect it without a separate message.

Multi-file changes (apply_patch) show each file as its own section — a dark header with +N -M stats, then the framed diff for that file.

Commands

/approve-diff              status
/approve-diff on|off       enable / disable the gate (persisted)
/approve-diff toggle       flip it
/approve-diff yolo         stop asking for the rest of this session
/approve-diff results on|off   toggle post-approval green result boxes

Post-approval result boxes

Approved changes render in the transcript as green-backgrounded diff boxes (dark header line, framed diff body). If you prefer a quiet transcript:

/approve-diff results off

…then /reload. Declines and steers always show their reason either way.

Configuration

~/.pi/agent/extensions/pi-approve-diffs.json:

{
  "enabled": true,
  "results": true
}

• enabled — gate on/off (also /approve-diff on|off)
• results — post-approval highlight boxes (also /approve-diff results on|off)

Both are safe to delete; defaults restore on next start.

Dev

git clone https://github.com/flatala/pi-approve-diffs
cd pi-approve-diffs
npm install
npm run typecheck   # tsc --noEmit
npm run check       # assert-based self-check of the vendored renderer
pi -e ./src/index.ts

How it works

src/index.ts hooks pi's tool_call event, builds the pre-apply diff in src/preview.ts, and shows the modal from src/ui.ts via ctx.ui.custom. Diff rendering is vendored from @heyhuynhgiabuu/pi-diff (Shiki-powered, MIT — see src/vendor/pi-diff/LICENSE), patched for this extension: pending calls stay neutral, results only highlight after approval.

Inspired by

• pi-show-diffs — the pre-apply approval modal concept
• pi-diffloop — approve / decline / steer actions
• @heyhuynhgiabuu/pi-diff — the Shiki renderer, vendored here

License

MIT — see LICENSE. The vendored renderer keeps its upstream MIT notice.