pi-doom-loop-detector

A Pi extension that detects when an LLM gets stuck in a repetitive "doom loop" and automatically injects a recovery prompt to break the cycle.

What is a Doom Loop?

A "doom loop" occurs when an LLM starts repeating the same phrase or pattern consecutively within a single response — often getting stuck in a cycle like:

"Let me analyze this... Let me analyze this... Let me analyze this..."

This is common with smaller models. This extension detects these loops in real-time and triggers an automatic recovery so you don't have to manually intervene.

Installation

Install directly from GitHub:

pi install https://github.com/ThewindMom/pi-doom-loop-detector

Or using git protocol:

pi install git:github.com/ThewindMom/pi-doom-loop-detector

Usage

Once installed, the extension runs automatically during Pi sessions. No configuration required.

What happens when a loop is detected:

1. Toast notification — A warning appears showing the repeated phrase and count
2. Recovery prompt — An automatic follow-up message is injected to break the loop

Example

If the LLM responds with:

I'll fix this now. I'll fix this now. I'll fix this now.

The extension will:

• Show: ⚠️ Doom loop detected: "I'll fix this now." repeated 3 times
• Inject: "I notice you have been repeating "I'll fix this now." multiple times. Please think from first principles, take a different approach and continue from there."

How It Works

The detection algorithm:

1. Extracts text from all assistant messages
2. Scans for repeated phrases — finds consecutive repetitions of 2-10 word sequences
3. Triggers when threshold is met — 3+ consecutive repetitions of the same phrase
4. Notifies and recovers — shows toast + injects recovery prompt

Detection Configuration

Setting	Value	Description
Min words	2	Catches short phrases like "test phrase"
Max words	10	Ignores very long repeated blocks
Threshold	3	Requires 3+ consecutive occurrences

Requirements

• Node.js >= 18.0.0
• Pi coding agent >= 0.51.0

License

MIT