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Use Spec Kitty in Pi TUI

Tier: partial — Spec Kitty installs Pi command-skill packages in 3.2, but real-session smoke evidence is not yet recorded. Citation (accessed 2026-05-21): https://pi.dev/docs/latest/skills

Partial-tier note

Pi TUI is classified partial in the 3.2 support matrix because:

  1. The Spec Kitty installer produces command-skill packages under .agents/skills/spec-kitty.*/SKILL.md.
  2. Pi's current skills documentation says project .agents/skills/ directories are discovered, and that skills register as /skill:<name> commands.
  3. A real-session smoke test for the complete Spec Kitty command set has not yet been recorded, so the row remains partial instead of supported.

Promotion to supported requires at least one documented smoke test against a real Pi session; the full rule is maintained in docs/development/3-2-harness-research-method.md §6.

Prerequisites

  • Spec Kitty CLI installed. See Install Spec Kitty.
  • Project initialized for this harness: 
    spec-kitty init --ai pi
  • Pi installed. Follow the Pi documentation at https://pi.dev/docs/latest for the current install path and authentication flow.

Where Spec Kitty installs files

Per the supported-harnesses matrix, Pi consumes Spec Kitty as Agent Skills. Spec Kitty installs:

  • Directory: .agents/skills/spec-kitty.<command>/
  • Files: one SKILL.md per command (spec-kitty.specify/SKILL.md, spec-kitty.plan/SKILL.md, spec-kitty.tasks/SKILL.md, spec-kitty.implement/SKILL.md, etc.).
  • Manifest: .kittify/command-skills-manifest.json records that Pi references each command-skill package.
  • Runtime ignore entry: .pi/ is added to .gitignore when Pi is configured.

The shared .agents/skills/ tree can be co-owned by Codex, Vibe, Pi, and Letta. Do not copy or edit the generated SKILL.md files manually; use spec-kitty agent config sync or spec-kitty upgrade to refresh them.

Canonical invocation

Pi's skills documentation says skills register as /skill:<name> commands. For Spec Kitty command-skill packages, use that form:

/skill:spec-kitty.specify "<one-line mission description>"
/skill:spec-kitty.plan
/skill:spec-kitty.tasks
/skill:spec-kitty.implement WP01

Worked example

Until full smoke evidence lands, treat Pi TUI as a partial-tier host and verify command behavior on a low-risk mission first:

  1. From your project root, run Pi.
  2. At the prompt, type: 
    /skill:spec-kitty.specify "a hello world page"
  3. Answer the Spec Kitty interview prompts inline.
  4. When asked for a kebab-case slug, supply something short, e.g. hello-world-page.
  5. The mission spec lands at kitty-specs/hello-world-page-<mid8>/spec.md.

If Pi does not expose the command in your installed version, the artifacts remain harness-agnostic:

  1. Drive the mission lifecycle through another configured harness (for example, Claude Code: /spec-kitty.specify "a hello world page").
  2. The mission spec lands at kitty-specs/hello-world-page-<mid8>/spec.md on disk.
  3. Open Pi TUI against the same project directory and inspect the kitty-specs/ tree as plain files.

Troubleshooting

  • No /spec-kitty.* commands inside Pi TUI. Expected — Pi is a skill host, not a slash-command host for Spec Kitty. Use /skill:spec-kitty.<command> and confirm .agents/skills/spec-kitty.*/SKILL.md exists.

  • Profile not loading. The /ad-hoc-profile-load workflow assumes a slash-command host. If your Pi build does not expose equivalent profile loading, use the helper from your other configured harness and reuse the same kitty-specs/<mission>/ tree.

Where to learn more about Pi TUI

Authoritative documentation: https://pi.dev/docs/latest/skills (accessed 2026-05-21). The matrix row in docs/reference/supported-harnesses.md remains the promotion tracker.

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