pi-goals

A pi extension for plan-driven, goal-tracked work in one goals.md. Set up goals (with evidence and failure modes) in plan mode, work them, and sign a goal off only when a read-only subagent has checked the evidence.

Successor to pi-lgtm, kept deliberately small: about burneikis/pi-plan plus the additions, goals with evidence, a sign-off check, a widget, and a reminder.

The form guides; it does not gate. The agent edits goals.md with its normal Edit tool. The one blessed tool is CompleteGoal, which runs the sign-off check and records the result. The reminder, the injected plan summary, and git/widget visibility carry the process. It trusts the agent's judgement rather than guarding it.

Install

pi install npm:@wassname2/pi-goals

Or run without installing:

pi -e npm:@wassname2/pi-goals

Use

/goals add CSV export to the report view

1. Plan. The agent explores read-only and writes goals into goals.md (see format below).
2. Review. You get a menu: Ready, Edit (ask the agent to revise), Open in $EDITOR, or Cancel. On Ready you choose whether to keep the current context or start fresh and compacted.
3. Work. Each turn the active goal is injected (so it survives compaction) and a reminder nudges the agent to keep goals.md current and work autonomously. When a goal's done_when is met the agent calls CompleteGoal, which runs verify and a read-only judge and, on accept, marks it done and logs it.

Other commands: /goals (print the goals), /goals clear (empty goals.md, history kept in git), /goals judge <model-ref> (use a specific model for the sign-off judge; default is your current model).

goals.md format

One file holds the objective, the goals, and a short append-only log.

# Goals: ship the cache layer

## Goal: [/] Implement cache layer
<!-- id: cache-layer-1 -->
done_when: p95 < 50ms on bench-X
verify: pytest tests/cache -q && python bench/p95.py --max-ms 50
- [x] wire cache client
- [ ] eviction policy

failure_modes:
  - cache silently bypassed (hit-rate ~0, latency ok by luck)
  - bench too small to exercise eviction
evidence:
  - load-test.log p95=41ms; bench/p95.py exited 0
  - cache hit-rate 0.93 in load-test.log (not bypassed)

## Log
- 2026-06-15 14:02  cache client wired; eviction next

• A goal is a ## Goal: header whose checkbox carries its state ([ ] open, [/] active, [x] done, [-] cancelled), then an <!-- id -->, one falsifiable done_when:, an optional verify: shell command, - [ ] subtasks, an optional short failure_modes: pre-mortem list, and an evidence: list.
• done_when is the test, written at planning. evidence is the proof, a - list the agent fills at completion pointing at durable artifacts; CompleteGoal reads it from the file. failure_modes is the pre-mortem. verify, when present, is the deterministic first stage of the sign-off.
• The agent ticks subtasks, appends to ## Log, and sets the header checkbox ([/] when it starts a goal) as it works. Only CompleteGoal writes [x]. Multiple goals may be active.

The sign-off check (CompleteGoal)

CompleteGoal(goal_id) is the one blessed completion path. It reads the goal's evidence: block from goals.md (so the proof is git-tracked and human-reviewable before sign-off, not buried in a tool call):

1. If the goal has a verify: command, it is run. A non-zero exit rejects immediately, with no model call.
2. Otherwise a read-only pi subprocess (the judge) inspects the evidence: items against the repo and the named failure modes and returns a verdict. It re-derives from the artifacts the evidence points at rather than trusting the claim, so the evidence: list should name durable artifacts (saved logs, committed diffs, files).
3. On accept, the goal's header checkbox flips to [x] and a ## Log line is written. On reject, the goal stays open and the agent is told what is missing.

The judge defaults to your current model (guaranteed authorized and capable). Set a different one with /goals judge <provider/model> for an independent cross-family check.

Prompts

All model-facing text lives in src/prompts.ts, in flow order, so the process is easy to review end to end.

Develop

pi -e ./src/index.ts        # load locally
npm test                    # vitest: parser + sign-off record logic
npm run typecheck
npm run lint

Not (yet) included

No autonomous re-prompt loop (an until-done-style loop judge). Autonomy comes from the reminder, not a harness. Plan-phase model stickiness is a documented next step.

License

MIT