Single-buffer (comint) mode — separate package or contribution?

[eengad]

Following up on #149. I'm planning a single-buffer comint-based frontend for pi, similar in spirit to agent-shell but speaking pi's RPC directly for full feature coverage (thinking blocks, extension UI, compaction, forking, etc.).

The core new code is ~600 lines. The question is where it lives:

1. Separate package that depends on pi-coding-agent (reuses core.el, render helpers, menu commands)
2. New file in this repo (pi-coding-agent-shell.el) with shared code and maintenance

Option 2 is cleaner but only makes sense if you're interested in maintaining it. Either way, the two-buffer mode stays as-is — this is complementary.

Would you be open to a PR, or would you prefer this as a standalone package?

[dnouri]

Yeah, I'm glad you said "interesting in maintaing it." I honestly have a hard imagining maintaining a separate comint mode, since I wouldn't be using it. And so there would be a lack of motivation of updating it with any new features, and a lack of exposure to it, which would result in regressions that go unnoticed.

However, if you want to make this a package that depends on this one, you're welcome, and I'd be happy to try and not break public functions that you depend on. I think that would make more sense.