Feature: Visual progress indicators for background subagents
Feature Request
When using the Agent tool with run_in_background: true to dispatch multiple subagents in parallel, there's no visual feedback on their progress in the terminal.
Current behavior
- A spinner shows the current foreground task
- Background agents show nothing until they complete with a
<task-notification> - The only way to check progress is manually reading output files via
tail -f
Proposed behavior
A compact, real-time status panel showing all running background agents:
┌─ Agents ──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ ⠋ Update service files [2m 14s] │
│ ⠙ Create billing module [0m 48s] │
│ ✓ Install dependencies [0m 12s] DONE │
│ ✓ Write security rules [0m 08s] DONE │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Why this matters
When executing implementation plans with subagent-driven development, it's common to dispatch 3-5+ agents in parallel. Without visual feedback, the user has no sense of progress and the terminal feels "stuck" during long waits.
Even a minimal version (agent name + elapsed time + spinner) would be a huge UX improvement for power users running parallel workloads.
Context
Discovered while running 30+ subagents in a single session to build a SaaS platform migration (7 implementation plans, all parallelized). The lack of visual feedback was the main friction point.
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