Interfaces
A good agent dashboard shows the next decision.
Activity is not insight. A useful interface helps a person understand what needs attention, why it matters, and what they can do next.
Agent systems create a lot of visible activity: tool calls, events, messages, scores, retries, and intermediate outputs. None of that is automatically useful. The interface earns its place when it turns activity into a decision.
Make status unambiguous
Every piece of work should have a clear state. Is it running, waiting, finished, partially complete, blocked, or ready for review? Use words as well as visual signals. A person should not need to infer whether the system is progressing or whether they are needed.
Put the exception before the inventory
The default view should surface work that needs attention, not simply list everything in chronological order. A blocked approval, a repeated failure, or a workflow that finished with an important gap is more useful than a long stream of successful events.
Translate the signal
Raw counts and technical details are essential for investigation, but they are a poor first layer. Lead with a short explanation of the change, its likely consequence, and the available action. Let people go deeper when they need the evidence behind the summary.
Keep the action proportional
Offer the action that matches the situation: clarify an input, review a proposal, retry one bounded step, compare an earlier attempt, or stop the workflow. A vague “manage” button makes a person reconstruct the system before they can help.
The best operational surface does not make the system look busy. It makes the next responsible decision obvious.