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I've sold out

mariozechner.at

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Re: I've sold out

#101

Post by tasuki »

Lerc wrote: post #97
colinmarc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pi is a coding agent harness, like Claude Code, but significantly better and more elegant. Here is a good post describing it: https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/1/31/pi/ I switched a few months ago and have not looked back. Unfortunately Anthropic blocked access from Claude Subscription users today, but that's a different story.

To what extent do you feel the harness contributes relative to the model? To put another way, how much inferior can the model be with a superior harness to achieve a similar result?

Pi doesn't claim to get better results. It is conceptually simpler, smaller, and more transparent to the end user than most harnesses. It's as much about the things it doesn't do as about what it can do.

Re: I've sold out

#102

Post by phrotoma »

dust42 wrote: post #77

Context: Mario Zechner is the creator of the pi coding harness which powers OpenClaw. OpenClaw is made by Peter Steinberger, a friend of Mario Zechner. Armin is another friend who made public that OpenClaw is based on pi. Pi itself is a minimalist coding harness with a tiny 1500 token system message and only read, edit and bash as tools. I only discovered it a few weeks ago and it is surprisingly powerful with a loca…

thank you, this comment helped a great deal.

Re: I've sold out

#104

Post by tasuki »

uxcolumbo wrote: post #86
colinmarc wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pi is a coding agent harness, like Claude Code, but significantly better and more elegant. Here is a good post describing it: https://lucumr.pocoo.org/2026/1/31/pi/ I switched a few months ago and have not looked back. Unfortunately Anthropic blocked access from Claude Subscription users today, but that's a different story.

I don't know much about the factors that determine why one AI coding harness is better than others. Is it system prompts? Or just personal preference in terms of the UX and there isn't actually a better output between using CC or Pi? So what makes Pi better than CC? Is it better than OpenCode?

CC is a steaming pile of vibe-coded bloat. If that rocks your boat, go knock yourself out.

Is it better than OpenCode? It's certainly much smaller and doesn't have a client-server architecture - already that is a big win.

Re: I've sold out

#105

Post by sayYayToLife »

dust42 wrote: post #77

Context: Mario Zechner is the creator of the pi coding harness which powers OpenClaw. OpenClaw is made by Peter Steinberger, a friend of Mario Zechner. Armin is another friend who made public that OpenClaw is based on pi. Pi itself is a minimalist coding harness with a tiny 1500 token system message and only read, edit and bash as tools. I only discovered it a few weeks ago and it is surprisingly powerful with a loca…

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Re: I've sold out

#106

Post by rvz »

Eventually, everyone has a "price" or a "figure" they are thinking about in their heads. That's fine and I don't think Mario made any promises here about Pi.

However, the worst ones are the ones who preach to others about never selling out whilst telling others that they are there for the long-term publicly, but will privately sell out the minute the offer is greater and exclusive to them.

The point here is not make such promises. People who preach one thing and then are tested to do another are the ones to avoid.

Re: I've sold out

#107

Post by JeremyNT »

tasuki wrote: post #98
stefan_ wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are some people that are "way too deep" into what they think is the "AI ecosystem". The reality is that no such thing exists and most people opening Claude daily have never heard of their harness, tool, stack or whatever. It has about half the relevancy of "MCP", which is such a similar concept where hanger ons try to catch a steam train.

Wow, I couldn't disagree more! Claude Code is a steaming pile of vibe-coded bloat. Pi has been elegantly designed with a minimalist mindset. > It has about half the relevancy of "MCP", which is such a similar concept where hanger ons try to catch a steam train. I'm not even sure what you're saying here. Are you saying MCP and Pi are similar concepts? Or that both are hanger-ons? I believe the steam train of Claude Co…

> Claude Code is a steaming pile of vibe-coded bloat.

Not disagreeing but I'm curious how much it really matters.

I use OpenCode which is similarly a steaming pile of vibe-coded bloat and get pretty good results!

I'm open to switching to pi, which I've read about occasionally on HN, but I'm struggling to see where it might have practical benefits versus OpenCode.

The idea that pi is now under corporate governance with a potentially sustainable business model does intrigue me, but there's risk in adopting "open core" software too due to the potential rug pull and incentives to gate important features behind more restrictive licenses.

Re: I've sold out

#108

Post by NitpickLawyer »

dust42 wrote: post #77

Context: Mario Zechner is the creator of the pi coding harness which powers OpenClaw. OpenClaw is made by Peter Steinberger, a friend of Mario Zechner. Armin is another friend who made public that OpenClaw is based on pi. Pi itself is a minimalist coding harness with a tiny 1500 token system message and only read, edit and bash as tools. I only discovered it a few weeks ago and it is surprisingly powerful with a loca…

> who made public that OpenClaw is based on pi.

I haven't kept up with the various claw stuff, but isn't openclaw the one under MIT on github? What does "made public" mean in this context?

Re: I've sold out

#109

Post by sayYayToLife »

colesantiago wrote: post #42
unsupp0rted wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it takes years to get paradigm-shifting tech off the ground. You need hyper-obsessive nerds (the kind who were hyper-obsessive in school about D&D and LotR) to bring it to fruition. The non-LotR namers give up early.

This makes absolutely no sense.

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Re: I've sold out

#110

Post by try-working »

_pdp_ wrote: post #38

I went to Earendil website and github and I still don't know what this is. Someone care to explain?

it's an agent product that you interact with over email. it has skills and stuff. it has multiplayer. so it's something like openclaw, but different.
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