[idea] Add an opt-in animated status-indicator style

[bitbonsai]

idea / problem

Herdr's static status indicators avoid continuous terminal output, but I find a spinner much faster to recognize as "actively working" than a yellow dot or static glyph.

I prototyped a third, explicitly opt-in value for the existing status-indicator setting:

[ui]
status_indicators = "animated"

The current static style would remain the default.

This request is limited to animation. The video also shows contextual compact-sidebar labels from a separate UI proposal: #2533

requested change

The optional style uses:

• blocked: ▲
• working: Pi's Ora-style spinner
• done/idle: ✓
• unknown: ·

The spinner uses these frames at an 80ms cadence:

⠋ ⠙ ⠹ ⠸ ⠼ ⠴ ⠦ ⠧ ⠇ ⠏

Expanded and compact sidebars use the same status mapping.

I saw the performance and motion concerns in #1316, along with the distinct-shape work in #824. This proposal keeps static indicators as the default. Users who prefer motion could select animated; users concerned about distraction, cursor blinking, or rendering cost would keep dots or symbols.

The prototype schedules animation only while an app client is attached, the desktop sidebar is visible, and at least one agent is working. The timer stops when those conditions no longer apply.

Demo

herdr-merged-min.mp4

why you want this

An animated spinner communicates active work immediately for users who prefer motion. I measured its cost so the tradeoff is explicit.

Release builds were benchmarked on an Apple M5 Pro with a 120×40 viewport and one working agent. Each result is the median of three 15-second runs after warmup.

Variant	Server CPU	Client CPU	Combined CPU	Terminal output
Static symbol	0.13%	0.20%	0.33%	0 B/s
Animated, 80ms	1.47%	0.73%	2.19%	1.35 KB/s

The output volume is small, but its cadence can suppress host-terminal cursor blinking and interfere with terminal copy-mode snapshots. The setting is intentionally opt-in because that tradeoff is real.

The implementation has focused timer and rendering tests. It uses a dedicated deadline instead of keeping the general render loop active.

Would an explicit opt-in animated style be acceptable with the current static behavior left as the default?

[JasonLandbridge]

Yes please! These colored dots are horrible!