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pi Desktop is a desktop graphical user interface for the pi SDK, aimed at individual developers, published by pi-desktop and currently at version 0.5.8, with 21 versions released to date. Built on Electron, it replaces the terminal-based TUI interaction model of the pi command-line tool with a visual experience featuring timelines, tool cards, change review, and an extension compatibility layer. The software falls into the developer tools category, specifically AI-assisted development and coding agent interfaces, and is suited for developers who already use pi in the terminal but want a graphical environment for conversational coding, tool call inspection, and diff review. A core design principle is that pi's own data remains the source of truth: conversation content, tool invocation records, branching, and compaction information are all read from the JSONL session files that pi writes to ~/.pi/agent/sessions/. The desktop app does not maintain a separate chat history database; it stores only application preferences such as window layout, recent projects, extension toggles, and adapter overrides. This means terminal pi and desktop pi can continue the same session interchangeably, and uninstalling the desktop app does not lose conversation history. Configuration and authentication are likewise shared with the terminal: model accounts, settings.json, extension package lists, and project-level .pi/ resources use the same paths and rules, and changes made in the desktop settings are written back to the global settings.json so skills toggles and other options take effect consistently. For extensions, which typically rely on TUI elements like pickers, confirmations, questionnaires, and /commands, pi Desktop provides a compatibility layer that translates extension UI requests into Electron dialogs, timeline cards, and settings forms. Per-extension adapters define how each extension displays and configures on the desktop, with JSON overrides available for advanced users, all without modifying extension npm packages or forking pi; the repository's doc/ directory includes an adapter authoring guide.
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