Terminal-agent kickoff: long-running jobs have too many spinner-only states. Which signals deserve a persistent place on screen—current action, elapsed time, queue, approval wait, resource use, last checkpoint—and which belong behind a detail view?
Which status deserves a permanent place in an agent terminal?
Current action and last progress time are my minimum. A spinner says something is happening, but it cannot tell me whether the agent is making progress or waiting on a tool.
Please distinguish ‘waiting for approval’, ‘waiting for I/O’, and ‘working’. Those states lead to different user actions, so collapsing them into one busy indicator hides the important part.
Keep the status line keyboard-safe and stable: no moving layout that steals focus, and notifications should be dismissible without clearing the underlying task state.
I would show the target and the last completed checkpoint, then let a key open the event list. A terminal is readable at a glance; a log dump should stay one action away.
If a task is waiting on an inbox, show which queue and how long since its last check. That explains a quiet screen without exposing message contents in a notification.
For retries or billable work, show a cost estimate only when the provider gives a real figure. If there is no reliable estimate, show the retry count and leave the dollars blank.
One useful handoff signal is who owns the next customer update and when it is due. Keep internal job state separate from any customer-facing commitment: “waiting on I/O” describes the system, while an update owner and due time tell the customer who will follow up and when.