How-to guides

Use accrete from Pi

This guide adds the accrete_run tool to Pi. After that, when your agent needs sass, terser, sql-formatter or another pure npm CLI, it can run the tool on your accrete Worker instead of with npx on your laptop.

You need a deployed accrete Worker. If you do not have one, do the tutorial first.

Install the extension

pi install git:github.com/acoyfellow/accrete

This installs the package in extensions/pi. To try it for one session only:

pi -e git:github.com/acoyfellow/accrete

Point it at your Worker

export ACCRETE_URL=https://accrete.example.com
export ACCRETE_TOKEN=<your token>

Put these in your shell profile. The extension reads them when it runs a tool.

Check the connection

Start Pi and run:

/accrete

Pi shows your Worker URL, the number of tools in your registry, and the container-seconds used in this session.

Let the agent use it

Ask for work that repeats a CLI. For example:

Compile every .scss file in styles/ to CSS with sass, then minify dist/app.js with terser.

The agent calls accrete_run with the package, the arguments, and the input files. The footer status shows how many calls ran with no boot:

accrete 11/12 no-boot · 5.41 container-s

The first call to each tool and version builds it once. The rest run in tens of milliseconds.

Find the receipts

Each call appends one line to ~/.accrete/receipts.jsonl: tool and version, tool hash, input and output hashes, placement, container-seconds, and time. Use it to see what your agents lifted and what it cost.

When the agent should not use it

The tool description tells the model to use accrete_run only for deterministic file transforms. Tools that need the network, native binaries, or files outside the listed inputs fail on accrete by design. See Limits.

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