Draft and edit a document

Goal: write a first draft from your own notes, then change one part of it without touching the rest, with the earlier version kept so you can go back.

You need: PiG signed in to a model (Your first ten minutes) and your notes in a plain text or Markdown file. PiG cannot read Word or Pages files. Save them as plain text first, or paste the text into a .txt file.

Time: ten minutes.

Before you start

Put your notes in a new folder and start PiG there:

mkdir ~/status-update && cd ~/status-update
cat > notes.txt <<'EOF'
Week 12 notes
- API migration finished, 2 days late
- Hired one designer (starts Monday)
- Budget: 8% under plan
- Risk: vendor contract renewal due 30 Oct
EOF
pig

Step 1: draft from the notes

Read notes.txt and write a one-page status update for my manager into update.md. Plain language, three short paragraphs.

Name the file, the reader, the length and the tone. PiG shows the file it writes, then the model's message:

 write update.md

 # Project update, week 12

 The API migration finished two days late. The team is now working on the remaining clean-up.

 A designer joins on Monday. Hiring is complete for this quarter.

 The project is 8% under budget. The one open risk is the vendor contract, which renews on 30
 October.

 I wrote update.md from notes.txt: three short paragraphs (progress, people, budget and risk).

Your model's draft will read differently. write creates the file, or overwrites it if it exists (Pi packages/coding-agent/src/core/tools/write.ts:78-82). The first draft is safe because update.md did not exist. A second write update.md would replace it.

Naming a file in the editor

Typing @ in the editor shows file suggestions. Tab completes the name. PiG sends your text as you typed it, including the @name. It does not paste the file's contents into your message. The model opens the file itself with its read tool. If you want the contents sent with your first message, start PiG with the file on the command line: pig @notes.txt "Write a status update from this".

Step 2: keep a copy, then change one thing

Before the second change, keep the first draft. A copy is the most reliable way back.

Before you change update.md again, copy it to update.v1.md. Then make the first paragraph friendlier. Change nothing else.

PiG copies the file, then edits it. An edit is a replacement of one passage by another, and PiG shows it as a diff. Lines that start with - were removed, lines that start with + were added, and the numbers are line numbers in the file:

 $ cp update.md update.v1.md && ls

 notes.txt
 update.md
 update.v1.md

 Took 0.0s

 edit update.md

  1 # Project update, week 12
  2
 -3 The API migration finished two days late. The team is now working on the remaining clean-up .
 +3 The API migration is done, two days later than planned. The team is tidying up the last
 details.
  4
  5 A designer joins on Monday. Hiring is complete for this quarter.
  6
  7 The project is 8% under budget. The one open risk is the vendor contract, which renews on 30
 October.

 I changed only the first paragraph. The other two are as they were.

The diff is the check. Only line 3 changed, and lines 1, 2 and 4 to 7 are context. In colour, PiG highlights the changed words inside the line (Pi packages/coding-agent/src/modes/interactive/components/diff.ts:22-45). Without colour the only sign is a stray space before the full stop, as in the diff above. Pi shows the same.

Repeat step 2 as often as you like, with update.v2.md, update.v3.md and so on.

Step 3: check the result

Open update.md and read it as your manager would.

Compare it with the earlier version:

diff update.v1.md update.md

3c3
< The API migration finished two days late. The team is now working on the remaining clean-up.
---
> The API migration is done, two days later than planned. The team is tidying up the last details.

3c3 means line 3 changed. < is the old text and > is the new text. No other line is listed, so no other line changed.

Check the facts against notes.txt: dates, figures and names. A model can invent a detail that sounds right.

Step 4: copy the text out

Type /copy in PiG to copy the last message to your clipboard. Or open update.md and copy from there.

Undo

The last edit: cp update.v1.md update.md puts the first draft back.
The whole thing: delete update.md and update.v1.md. notes.txt was only read.
With PiG: type Put update.md back to how it was in update.v1.md. If you made no copy, type Undo your last edit to update.md. The model can see the diff it made in the conversation and reverse it. That works only while the edit is still in the conversation.

Variations

Tone: "Rewrite update.md for a customer instead of my manager. Write it to update-customer.md."
Shorter: "Cut update.md to 100 words. Write the result to update-short.md and keep the original."
Proofread, do not rewrite: "List spelling and grammar mistakes in update.md as a numbered list. Do not edit the file."
Your voice: paste two paragraphs you wrote earlier and say "Match this style".

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