Labs: inbox-first layout

[sean-brydon]

One of several parallel experiments in navigation that isn't a sidebar. This one is inbox first, in the style of Superhuman.

Turn it on in Settings › Labs › Layout › Inbox, or with ?layout=inbox in mock mode. The sidebar stays the default and is unchanged. The pref is layout: "sidebar" | "inbox" in berth.prefs. An integration pass will merge it with the other Labs layout switch.

The idea

The sidebar becomes one triage list of every agent on every box.

Sections:

• Needs you: the agent that has waited longest is on top.
  • A permission ask shows its whole command, wrapped, with Deny and Allow once on the row.
  • Under the cursor, y and n answer it and the cursor moves to the next row.
  • Review's finished work also appears here.
• Working: two lines per row, the title and then the place and current step.
• Recent: done and idle agents, one line each.

Keys:

Key	What it does
j / k	Move
↵	Open the worktree beside the list
e	Clear the row until its agent's state changes
z	Undo
b	Go back to the last worktree
c	New task
/ or ⌘K	Search
⌘J	Bring the keyboard back to the list from a terminal (in this layout only)
⌘\	Fold the list
?	Show every key

Behaviour:

• Rows hold their places while the pointer or keyboard is in the list.
• The open row is filled, with a bar at its edge. The cursor is shown as an outline.

Also covered:

• New task brings Home's composer forward.
• An Inbox | Projects toggle switches to today's tree.
• A filter by box and project.
• Review, Automations, More and Settings at the foot.
• Below 1024px the list folds to a strip of agent rings while a worktree is open, and ⌘J lays it over the worktree.

Code

• app/src/lib/inbox.ts (+ inbox.test.ts): the model with no React. It covers sections, ordering, clear and undo, filters, holding rows in place, and cursor steps.
• app/src/components/inbox/: the pane, the row, the strip, the Home panel and the state.
• Small hooks into existing code:
  • App.tsx: the layout branch.
  • prefs.ts: the layout pref and ?layout=.
  • Labs settings: the Layout row.
  • use-shortcuts.ts: ⌘J in the inbox layout.
  • useLiveStep and QUESTION_TOOLS are now exported from the home widgets.

Scores

A fresh critic subagent scored each round from 1 to 10, against today's app and against Superhuman, Linear and Arc.

	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5 (final)
Speed to what needs you	8	8	8	8	9
Switching	5	6	7	6	7
Overview of many agents	5	5	6	6	6
Focus and calm	7	7	6	7	5.5
Learnability	6	6	7	6	7
Visual quality vs today	7	7	7	7	7

Only one axis reached 8. I stopped after five rounds, and here is why the rest don't get there:

• Overview (6). A list ordered by state loses the shape of the work: parent and child worktrees, grouping by box, and idle worktrees, which live behind the Projects toggle. Grouping Recent by project would help with large fleets, but at that point it is a tree again.
• Calm (5.5–7). The critics disagreed with each other here. One asked for a fill on the open row and the next asked to drop it. Each one called the 30px rings, the monospace commands and the 316–360px panel busier than the 240px sidebar. Shrinking all of that trades away the "see the ask without opening it" speed that scores 9.
• Switching (7). Rows move when an agent changes state. Holding them still, b and ⌘J help, but a tree gives you place memory that a state-sorted list can't.
• Not mine to change: the folded strip reuses the sidebar's rail (RailAgents). Its duplicate labels ("order-export" twice) are a fix in shared code.

Worth taking whatever layout wins:

• Clear-until-it-changes.
• Never offer Allow next to a cut-off command, and y/n with auto-advance.
• Hold a live list's order while the pointer or keyboard is in it.
• ⌘J back to the list and b for the last worktree.

Checks

• pnpm typecheck:plugins, check:titles, check:csp, check:themes, pnpm test (303 pass) and pnpm build all pass.
• npx tsc -p e2e passes.
• docs-site build passes.
• go vet passes.
• No Go or Rust changes.
• e2e:
  • New e2e/inbox.spec.ts (5 tests): keyboard triage (j/k/e/z/y/↵/⌘J/b), New task and c, Projects, Review and Settings › Labs back to the sidebar, and the narrow fold and overlay. It passed --repeat-each=4.
  • An inbox a11y scene, which passes in dark and light.
  • keyboard.spec.ts and rail.spec.ts still pass.

🤖 Generated with Claude Code

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[sean-brydon]

Stashed: not going ahead with this layout for now. The branch stays for later.