Writing with PI
Ask PI to write something and it produces an artifact: a document that lives in your workspace, outlasts the conversation that made it, and can be reopened, downloaded, typeset and built on later. Find them all under Artifacts in the left rail.
What PI can write
| Ask for a… | Command | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Literature review | /review | Themes, positions compared, open questions |
| Short brief | /brief | A page or two on a topic |
| Report | /report | Findings, the state of play, implications, what to watch |
| Research proposal | /proposal | Motivation, the gap, the proposed direction, approach, expected contribution. Ask for a grant version to add objectives, timeline, budget narrative and impact. |
| Paper draft | /paper | Abstract through conclusion, with references |
| Patent draft | /patent | Field, background, summary, detailed description and numbered claims, written from your own library first |
| Submission package | /submission | Three files: a cover letter, the paper, and three suggested venues (suggestions only; verify them yourself). Typeset, they make one PDF, letter first. |
| Post | /post | 150 to 300 words ready to paste anywhere. It does not publish itself. |
| Code | just ask | A program in the language you name, saved as a file with the right extension. Ask for it "as separate files", as "a project" or "with a README" and you get a small project instead; "in one file" keeps it to one. |
| Chart or diagram | /chart, /draw | A data chart drawn from real numbers, or a diagram |
You can also just describe what you want: "write me a proposal on covenant-based identity on Nostr". The kind of document you name wins.
Already have a document in the conversation? Say "turn it into a submission package" (or a paper, a brief, a post) and PI builds the new document from that one, its references included. /submission on its own does the same.
PI writes from the Claim network first and from your library where that is the point (a patent, or anything about your own work). For reports, proposals and papers it searches the web on its own when it finds too few tracked sources. Every document is checked before you see it: the required sections are present, figures are real, equations and diagrams render, code parses. References are built from the sources actually used, and anything unverified is flagged as such.
Reading, downloading, typesetting
Open an artifact from the panel beside the chat or from Artifacts. From there:
- Files: a submission package or a code project shows a tab for each file. Whole package is the document as it downloads; a file's tab shows that file alone, and Copy copies whichever is open.
- Download as Markdown, or as the code file. A document with several files downloads as a zip.
- LaTeX: download the
.texsource (a zip with the figures when there are any), or open it in Overleaf with one click. - PDF: a typeset PDF produced on the server. If typesetting is unavailable, use Print from the reader instead, which prints or saves the page as a PDF from your browser.
- Every equation is typeset on the page, and diagrams are rendered live.
Reports: assemble your own document
Reports (/pi/reports) is where you compose a document of your own from several pieces: artifacts PI wrote, charts, files you attached and papers from your library. The editor saves as you type. You can pull in a whole artifact or just a section, insert a code artifact as-is or as a walkthrough, and the references are renumbered for you.
A report exports as Markdown, LaTeX or PDF. Reports are meant to be published outside PIPress, in a journal, to a funder, to your organisation, so PIPress does not treat them as published content of its own.
The difference: an artifact is one thing PI generated. A report is a document you compose from several of them.