Pi - The Practical Guide
Learn how to use the Pi coding agent, configure and extend it, and build real projects by leveraging its basic and advanced features.
About This Course
Welcome to "Pi - The Practical Guide"!
Pi is deliberately minimal and highly extensible — but that freedom can make the first steps less obvious.
You need to choose a model, understand Pi’s security model, manage sessions and context, and decide which customizations actually improve your workflow.
This course gives you a practical path from setup to daily use. You’ll configure Pi, work with files and terminal commands, guide it through real project tasks, add useful packages and AGENTS.md instructions, and create reusable agent skills, prompt templates, and Pi extensions.
By the end, you’ll know how to shape Pi into the coding agent you want: steer and queue work, plan without a built-in Plan Mode, manage longer sessions with clones, forks, trees and compaction, and even use Pi to configure and extend itself.
Why Learn Pi?
Pi gives you a minimal coding-agent core that you can adapt to the way you work. This course helps you move from first setup to practical daily workflows, safe usage, customization, and advanced session management.
What's in This Course?
You’ll learn how to use Pi’s minimal core, practical workflows, extensibility features, and advanced session tools to build a coding-agent setup that fits the way you work.
Set up and Configure Pi
Install Pi, connect a supported AI model, choose models and thinking levels, and manage global or project-specific settings so your setup matches your workflow.
Use Pi Safely and Deliberately
Understand Pi’s security model, use project trust correctly, restrict available tools, and optionally run Pi in a Docker container when you want more isolation.
Master Everyday Pi Workflows
Reference files, run terminal commands, work through real project tasks, plan before implementation, and manage the context that Pi needs to produce useful results.
Extend and Customize Pi
Create reusable agent skills and prompt templates, then build Pi extensions that can add tools, commands, UI behavior, permission checks, and other custom capabilities.
In Detail, You'll Learn
The course starts with installation and first steps, then moves into practical use, customization, and advanced Pi workflows.
Setup, Safety & Core Usage
Build a solid foundation for working with Pi productively:
- Installing Pi and connecting a supported AI model
- Choosing models and thinking levels for your workflow
- Managing global and project-specific settings
- Understanding Pi’s security model and project trust
- Restricting tools and optionally using Docker for isolation
- Working with files, terminal commands, and project context
- Planning implementation work without a built-in Plan Mode
Customization & Advanced Sessions
Shape Pi into a coding-agent setup that fits your projects:
- Using packages that add web access, guardrails, or subagents
- Writing concise local or global
AGENTS.mdfiles - Creating reusable agent skills and prompt templates
- Building Pi extensions for tools, commands, and UI behavior
- Adding permission checks and other custom capabilities
- Steering and queueing messages across sessions
- Using clones, forks, trees, summaries, and compaction
Build a Practical Pi Workflow Step by Step
Throughout the course, you’ll work through setup, practical project tasks, configuration files, packages, skills, prompt templates, extensions, and advanced session tools so you can use Pi confidently on real development work.
Built for Pi Beginners, AI Coding-Agent Users & Developers Who Want More Control
See The Course In Action
Example Curriculum
- Welcome To The Course! (0:45)
- Installing Pi & Choosing A Model (3:55)
- Exploring Base Settings (2:11)
- Understanding Pi's Security Model (1:57)
- Running in a Sandbox (9:59)
- Exploring More Advanced Settings (6:18)
- Key Shortcuts & Hotkeys To Note (3:20)
- Basic Sessions Usage (Continue, Resume) (3:33)
- Searching & Understanding Sessions Management (4:20)
- Using Ephemeral Sessions (1:10)
- Starting with Initial Prompts & Using Print Mode (1:59)
- Controlling Tools Availability (3:35)
- Module Introduction (0:57)
- Introducing Pi Packages (0:54)
- Installing & Configuring a Third-Party Packages (5:00)
- Packages Can Add New Tools! (0:55)
- Adding Guardrails via a Package (2:33)
- Adding Subagents to Pi (2:04)
- Letting Pi Configure Itself (2:57)
- Exploring More Packages (0:39)
- Tweaking via AGENTS.md (4:21)
- Understanding Agent Skills (2:24)
- Module Introduction (0:57)
- Creating A Skill From Scratch (9:01)
- Building Global Skills & When To Use (6:28)
- Activating Skills Manually (0:54)
- Problem: Repeated Prompts (5:14)
- Solution: Prompt Templates (4:56)
- Introducing Extensions (2:53)
- Building Extensions (5:46)
- Ideas For Extensions
Course Prerequisites
Here's what you need to get the most out of this course
- Basic programming experience is required.
- To follow along, you’ll need Pi installed and access to a supported AI model through a subscription, API key, or local model setup.
- No prior Pi experience is required.
All pre-requisites are covered by courses in our "Academind Pro" Membership.
Your Instructor
Maximilian Schwarzmüller
Founder & Instructor
Self-taught developer with 3,500,000+ students and 900,000 YouTube subscribers. I co-founded Academind with Manuel Lorenz to help people master new skills and build amazing projects.
Join 803 happy students!
Choose how you want to access this course
Single-Course License
Full access to "Pi - The Practical Guide"
This is a one-time payment that grants access to this course only, not to any other courses.
Academind Pro Membership
Unlimited access to this and all other current & future courses!
This is a recurring payment. You can cancel anytime from your profile. For more info, contact Academind.
Continue Your Learning Journey
Expand your skills with these hand-picked courses that complement what you'll learn here.
