Visibility is the difference between an agent demo and an agent system.
Users need to see enough internal state to trust, correct, and operate the system.
Show:
- active goal
- parallel goals
- completed goals
- blocked goals
- canceled goals
Show:
- queued count
- running count
- completed count
- failed count
- blocked count
- canceled count
- retry controls
- cancel controls
Show:
- worker budget used / max
- web research permission
- external action permission
- high-risk pending approvals
Show:
- title
- type
- source worker
- created time
- content
- source links where available
Show:
- classify
- reduce
- guard
- schedule
- worker events
- tool events
- artifact events
- failures
A state drawer should expose the raw or structured state:
- policy
- goals
- tasks
- workers
- artifacts
- beliefs
- traces
This is not only for developers. It is the product's truth window.
Agent systems produce long histories. The UI must not grow without limit.
Use:
- bounded transcript panels
- virtualized lists when needed
- trace retention windows
- artifact summaries
- expandable details
Good visibility lets the user answer:
- what is happening now?
- what is waiting?
- what failed?
- why did it fail?
- what did it produce?
- what can I change?
- did my interrupt land?
If users cannot inspect the system, they cannot steer it.