[idea] Make the agents panel rows configurable

[vbelman-dn]

idea / problem

Each entry in the agents panel renders as two fixed lines:

<icon> <space> · <tab>
<status> · <agent> · <custom>

The layout is hardcoded in the TUI. I can't change what shows on those two lines without patching the source. The info people care about varies, so a fixed layout feels limiting.

requested change

Add a small template language for the two rows, under a new config key:

[ui.agent_panel]
rows = [
  " {icon} {space}{ · tab}",
  "   {status}{ · agent}{ · custom}",
]

Fields: {icon}, {space}, {tab}, {status}, {agent}, {custom}.

Syntax:

• {field} inserts the value. An empty field inserts nothing.
• { · tab} is a literal prefix plus a field. The whole chunk is dropped when the field is empty, so no dangling separator when a pane has no tab.
• {field:role} picks a style role: name, status, or muted. These map to the active theme palette, so custom rows stay consistent with the theme. Each field has a sensible default role.
• {{ and }} for literal braces.

Scope and safety:

• TUI/client and config only. No server, protocol, or API changes.
• Defaults reproduce the current look exactly, so nothing changes for existing users.
• An invalid row, or a list that isn't exactly two entries, falls back to the built-in default for that row and logs a warning. It never breaks the sidebar.
• Rows are truncated to the sidebar width. Layout stays fixed at two lines per entry.
• Templates compile once at startup and on config reload.

why you want this

The agents panel is the main dashboard, but what matters differs per person. Some want the space and tab, some want the agent name up front, some want a tighter layout. A template is a small, contained way to shape that instead of adding a new one-off flag for every preference.

[vbelman-dn]

I already have a working implementation and wanted to propose the direction before opening a PR.

[acarril]

Following up on this now that 0.7.4 has landed. The core of the request is in: [ui.sidebar.agents] and [ui.sidebar.spaces] with configurable rows and tokens (state_icon, workspace, tab, agent, branch, git_status, custom $name, and so on). Being able to choose which tokens appear and how they stack across lines is exactly what I wanted, and it works great.

The part that didn't make it is the styling. The original proposal here included a {field:role} idea, where each field could map to a name / status / muted style role. The 0.7.4 addition gives structure but not presentation, so there's no way to set how a given token looks.

I dug into the current token to color mapping to confirm (setting theme tokens to bright test colors and watching what changed on 0.7.4):

• workspace uses subtext0 (bold), and it is the only token with its own color.
• agent, the · separators, the second-line titles (tab / terminal_title_stripped), branch, git_status, and the panel headers all collapse onto overlay0.

So today I can arrange the tokens but not distinguish them by color. I can't tint branch differently from the agent label, or give a title its own color, because they resolve to the same token. My only lever is overriding overlay0 in [theme.custom], which then brightens every element that uses overlay0, across the whole UI, not just the one token in the one panel.

Would it be possible to revisit the styling half of this? Either the {field:role} roles from the original proposal, or a per-token color (and ideally weight, bold or dim) inside the rows definition, for example:

# inline-table tokens
rows = [
  [{ token = "state_icon" }, { token = "workspace", bold = true }],
  [{ token = "tab", color = "#89b4fa", dim = true }],
]

# or a parallel style map, keeping rows terse
[ui.sidebar.agents.token_style]
tab    = { color = "sapphire" }
agent  = { color = "overlay1" }
branch = { color = "teal" }

Related: #1001 is the same token-reuse problem from a different angle (dedicated sidebar workspace tokens, since [theme.custom] tokens are shared with the tab bar).

Version: herdr 0.7.4 on macOS.

[ogulcancelik]

styling will arrive later, probably in 0.7.5, so i'm closing this now.

so many stuff to do, so bear with me please :)