Thank you for TUIOS — from a user with ADHD

[MunsuBahk]

I’ve been moving from Zellij to TUIOS, and I’m gradually settling into it as my everyday terminal workspace. I wanted to say thank you and share why it has been helpful to me.

I’m a veterinarian, and I use Neovim and AI tools for note-taking, accounting, and other work. My preferred setup is to keep Neovim on the left and switch between conversations or reference material on the right. TUIOS’s window management and Vim-style controls fit the way I work.

Working memory difficulties, task switching, resuming after interruptions, attention regulation, and task initiation are challenges recognized by clinicians and researchers who study ADHD. I experience these difficulties myself, and TUIOS has helped me manage them in my daily work.

I thought the following perspective might be useful for development. The benefits and coping strategies described here reflect my own experience, rather than a claim that TUIOS has clinically established benefits or will work the same way for everyone with ADHD.

The potential downsides below are general trade-offs of using terminal multiplexers, rather than problems specific to TUIOS. The final column describes my own experience and how I handle them.

ADHD-related challenge	How TUIOS can help	Potential downsides common to terminal multiplexers	My experience and how I handle it
Working memory load	Keeping the editor, references, and output in a consistent arrangement provides visible reminders of the current task.	Too many panes or hidden windows can create another set of things to remember.	I limit the number of windows I create. When I need more, I use a separate workspace rather than crowding the existing one.
Task switching	Keeping a stable main window while changing the supporting window helps preserve context.	Easy switching can encourage frequent hopping between unfinished tasks.	I’m still working on resisting that temptation.
Resuming after interruptions	Returning to a familiar workspace makes it easier to recognize where I left off.	A preserved layout does not necessarily tell me what I intended to do next.	I keep Neovim open in my main work window and use interstitial journaling to record where I stopped and what to do next.
Attention regulation	Showing only the relevant reference alongside the main task helps me direct my attention. Agent status and the Inbox can reduce repeated checking.	Moving output, status changes, and notifications can compete for attention.	I accept some of this as a trade-off. For now, I try to check only the messages that appear in the upper-right corner instead of scanning everything.
Task initiation	A familiar workspace reduces the preparation and decisions needed before starting.	Configuration, layout choices, and customization can become activities that delay the actual work.	For me, falling into “tool hell” feels almost like an ADHD inevitability. Sometimes I can only laugh and enjoy the tinkering along the way.
Managing unfinished work	Keeping tasks organized and seeing which agents need a response makes pending work easier to find.	Persistent sessions can accumulate and become an overwhelming collection of unfinished work.	The glyphs indicating each agent’s state help me make sense of what is still in progress and what needs my attention.

For me, the biggest benefit is having a stable place to return to. I don’t always need more things visible at once; I need to keep my bearings while bringing the relevant thing into view.

From that perspective, a few qualities would be especially valuable as TUIOS develops:

• Clear, consistent indications of the current mode and focused pane.
• Easy ways to reduce visual activity and control notifications.
• Predictable session behavior, with a clear distinction between detaching, ending a session, and restoring a workspace.
• Simple ways to identify a task’s purpose and the next action when returning to it.

I would be very grateful if you could keep these ADHD-related benefits and potential difficulties in mind during development. Small interaction details can make a substantial difference to the effort it takes to stay with a task.

I’ve also encountered issues and submitted bug reports, including one about Korean text rendering. Bug reports tend to capture the moments when something goes wrong, so I wanted to make sure I also expressed how much I appreciate the tool.

Thank you for building and sharing TUIOS. It has helped me create a workspace that fits the way I think and work, and I hope this feedback is useful.

[Gaurav-Gosain]

Thank you so much for writing this up @MunsuBahk, it genuinely made my day. Bug reports are the moments when something breaks, so hearing how tuios fits into your actual work means a lot. And the table is really useful, it's the kind of thing that's hard to see from the inside.

I want to act on your four points:

• Clear mode and focus: some of this just landed. The focused border now always stands clearly apart from the unfocused ones and differs between window and terminal mode, and appearance.dock_mode_pill = "input" keeps the mode on the dock pill while tiling. I'll keep pushing on this.
• Less visual activity and calmer notifications: I'm building a calm mode, one key (or one setting) that stops animations and shimmer, quiets info toasts, and only shows what actually needs you. Info toasts are also getting a shorter default.
• Predictable sessions: I'm going through the quit and close dialogs to make detach, end and restore read clearly different from each other.
• Remembering what a task is for: I'm adding a short note per session ("what this is for, what's next") that shows up when you come back to it. Agents can leave one too, so a session can tell you "next: run the migration" after a break.

Also, the Korean rendering bug you reported is fixed on main and ships in the next release. Thanks again for taking the time, and for the "tool hell" line, I felt that one.

[Gaurav-Gosain]

@MunsuBahk the return notes I mentioned are in now: one short line per session (or per pane), like "next: run the migration". tuios shows it in the dock when you come back to the session, and next to the session in the sidebar and the session switcher. Set it with Ctrl+B I or tuios note set ..., and it survives a daemon restart. Agents can leave one too before they stop. Would love to hear if this matches what you had in mind!

[MunsuBahk]

Thank you for adding this so quickly! Yes, this is very much what I had in mind—and honestly, it feels like exactly the feature I needed.

One of the hardest parts for me is not necessarily keeping a session open, but remembering why I opened it and what I intended to do next when I come back after an interruption. A familiar layout helps me recognize the workspace, but it cannot always bring back the context in my head.

Until now, I’ve been keeping Neovim open with my daily note so I can record where I stopped and what the next action is. Having a short return note directly in TUIOS means I can leave that reminder right where I’ll see it when I return, without needing to open a separate note just to find my place again.

The fact that it can be attached to a session or a pane, appears in the dock and session switcher, and survives a daemon restart makes it especially useful. I also love that agents can leave a note before they stop—that could make it much easier to pick up a task after stepping away.

Thank you for listening so carefully and turning the idea into something practical. I’m looking forward to trying it in my everyday workflow!

[Gaurav-Gosain]

So glad it fits @MunsuBahk! Your daily-note habit is a great use for it: Ctrl+B I, type the next step, and walk away. If anything about the note feels clunky once you use it every day (where it shows, how you clear it, the wording), tell me and I'll tune it.