Agent UX feedback: friction points and feature ideas from real session

[ekroon]

Context

Feedback from an extended tab management session using tabctl (list → close → group-assign → merge-window workflow). Managed 49 tabs across 3 windows: closed 30, created 5 groups, merged 2 windows down to 1.

Friction points

1. Positional args on close fail silently

tabctl close 123 456 789  # exit code 1, zero output

Expected: Usage hint like error: use --tab <id> to specify tabs

2. group-assign without --create gives unhelpful error

error: Group not found
hint: Use tabctl group-list to see existing groups.

Expected: Add tip: use --create to create a new group

3. merge-window flag names are not guessable

Tried --window/--into before discovering --from/--to. Consider adding aliases.

4. No way to move individual tabs between windows

Had to use group-assign (moves tab as side effect) or merge-window (moves everything). A tabctl move-tab --tab X --to-window Y would fill this gap.

5. Multi-window group-assign error could be more helpful

error: Multiple source windows. Provide --window to create a new group.

Expected: Add tip: create the group in one window first, then assign cross-window tabs to it by name

Feature ideas (AI agent use case)

tabctl list --flat

Flat list without window/group nesting — one tab per line with window and group as fields. Much easier for agents to parse and filter.

tabctl close --group "name"

Close all tabs in a group at once instead of enumerating tab IDs manually.

tabctl list --summary

Quick counts per window/group without full tab details. Useful for orientation.

Stdin piping

tabctl list --flat --json | jq ".[] | select(.groupTitle == null) | .tabId" | tabctl close --stdin

Enable powerful composition with standard Unix tools.

tabctl status

One-liner health check: window count, tab count, group count.

What works great

• Compact JSON output is clean and complete
• Tab IDs are stable throughout a session
• --confirm on close is good safety
• --create flag on group-assign is a nice create-or-assign pattern
• Group colors make visual organization intuitive
• Skill integration works well for the agent workflow loop