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Case study

Pi and Gemma 4 on Ollama Cloud.

Can a cheap cloud model in an open-source harness use the library on its own? Gemma 4 31B in Pi searched the library, installed a skill, and a new Pi session loaded that skill and used it.

Checked end to end on September 23, 2026 · Pi 0.73.1 · Gemma 4 31B through Ollama Cloud

The three parts

  • The harness

    Pi has no built-in Model Context Protocol client, so Baltor connects through a Pi extension: one TypeScript file, served at /assets/pi/baltor.ts. It adds two tools, baltor_search and baltor_download.

  • The model

    Gemma 4 31B through Ollama Cloud. Pi calls the model with your own access; Baltor never asks for a model key.

  • The key

    The file .pi/baltor.json names the environment variable that holds your Baltor key, never the key itself. The extension sends the key only to the service and removes it from every tool result.

What happened

  1. Found

    The model searched the library with baltor_search. A search returns references, never file bodies.

  2. Checked

    baltor_download writes a file only when it is exactly the file that was published, so a changed or broken download never lands in your project.

  3. Installed

    The skill landed in .pi/skills/<name>/SKILL.md. The extension never replaces a folder it did not install.

  4. Loaded

    A new Pi session loaded the skill. Pi lists a new skill from the next session on.

  5. Used

    The model used the skill in that session.

Try it yourself

Save the extension in your project, read it first, add the configuration and run the check. The check makes no model call and downloads nothing; its last line says Result: ready.

mkdir -p .pi/extensions
curl -fsSL https://baltor.ai/assets/pi/baltor.ts -o .pi/extensions/baltor.ts
pi -p --baltor-check

Full steps on Get set up

What it does not show

It was one check on one day. It shows the path from search to use working in Pi with a cheap cloud model; it does not measure whether the finished work was better than without the skill.