Per-session task list ("Todos") feels disconnected from session context — consider relocating into the workspace side panel as a tab

Reporter feedback

From Maheśvara on Discord (May 20 2026, testers channel):

just a point of feedback. I find the current tasks panel implementation a bit useless. In my experience it's mostly empty whenever I open it (even when having a plan running) and it being a separate panel from the "agent explorer tab" doesn't make much sense to me because the tasks are bound to the individual agent instance (at least from what i can tell). A better implementation would be to add it to the right similar to the workspace panel, maybe add it as a tab there.

(Got a 👍 reaction from another testers-channel member.)

Disambiguation

The WebUI currently has two side-rail buttons whose labels are easy to confuse:

Rail button	data-panel	Tooltip	Scope
Tasks	tasks	Tasks	Global cron jobs
Todos	todos	Current task list	Per-session task list (from the todo tool)

His description — "mostly empty… even when having a plan running… bound to the individual agent instance" — fits the Todos panel: it's the per-session task list parsed from todo tool calls in the active session (see ARCHITECTURE.md:1060, "todo list panel — parses tool results from session history"). Cron tasks are global, not session-bound, so they don't match his "bound to the individual agent instance" framing.

The shared "tasks" vocabulary is itself a UX papercut worth flagging — naming the rail icon Todos but the panel surface he'd describe as "the tasks panel" leads to exactly this confusion.

Suggestion

A better implementation would be to add it to the right similar to the workspace panel, maybe add it as a tab there.

His mental model: per-session metadata (workspace, todos, future artifacts) belongs in the right-side session-bound panel rather than the left-side rail of mode switches. The left rail is currently a mix of global views (Kanban boards, Skills, Memory, Profiles, Logs, Settings) and per-session views (Tasks-cron is global, Todos is per-session, Workspaces is per-session). That mix is what's making Todos feel out of place.

Possible shapes:

1. Minimal — relocate the Todos panel into the existing workspace side panel as a tab (Files / Todos / …). Same panel surface, two tabs. Discoverable from the same composer "show workspace panel" button. Removes the empty-rail-button problem (the rail Todos icon stays empty most of the time).
2. Medium — keep the rail button but also surface a "Current task list" pane in the workspace panel when one is active, badged with item count. Composer chip stays the single entry point; the rail just becomes a shortcut.
3. Larger — unify everything session-bound into a per-session right-side multi-tab container: Files, Todos, future Artifacts (see follow-up issue), session-scoped Notes, etc. Single mental model: anything session-bound lives on the right.

(1) is the lowest-cost step and most directly matches his suggestion.

Why this matters

• New users see a Todos rail button, click it, see an empty panel, lose trust in the feature.
• Even experienced users (running plans, see the screenshot) report the panel "mostly empty whenever I open it" — implying the per-session todo list is set up but the side rail isn't a natural place to look for it.
• The workspace panel is right next to where the file content the plan refers to lives. Co-locating todos with workspace files is a UX hit.

Out of scope

This is a layout / IA proposal — not a behavior change for the todo system itself. Followup #(new) covers the related "artifacts" tab Maheśvara also asked about; the two are siblings but each makes sense independently.

Suggested labels

enhancement, ux, sprint-candidate