2026-09-10 — Desk UX cadence and view modes

Summary

Locked the desk UX contract in Actor-model agentic UI: hard cadence separation between discussion and worker surfaces, three primary view modes (Linear, Grid, Tree) over one graph, temporal scrubber as a cross-cutting widget (not a fourth mode), and mixed-project guidance (new $CHAT_ROOT per workspace analog).

Changes

  • Cadence separation — coordinator/discussion chat is exploratory Q&A only; task nodes publish mailbox status; worker transcripts stay in fork panel; no cross-append of tool noise into discussion chat.jsonl.

  • Primary view modes — Linear (Cursor-like transcript), Grid (2D task tiles + separate discussion), Tree (L→R spawn tree with + spawn on branch).

  • Temporal — clarified as embeddable widget in any primary mode; existing temporal section retained and tightened.

  • Mixed project contexts — prefer new session root over forcing unrelated topics into one coordinator tree; soft related / wait edges may cross-reference.

  • Brief pointer in Agent harness Design direction / actor-model section.