We show how the fine structure in shift–tail equivalence, appearing in the non-commutative geometry of Cuntz–Krieger algebras developed by the first two listed authors, has an analogue in a wide range of other Cuntz–Pimsner algebras. To illustrate this structure, and where it appears, we produce an unbounded representative of the defining extension of the Cuntz–Pimsner algebra constructed from a finitely generated projective bi-Hilbertian module, extending work by the third listed author with Robertson and Sims. As an application, our construction yields new spectral triples for Cuntz and Cuntz–Krieger algebras and for Cuntz–Pimsner algebras associated to vector bundles twisted by an equicontinuous -automorphism.