Optional AI status line for each thread, refreshed when the thread goes idle

[HerbCaudill]

Claude posting on behalf of Herb Caudill

When I have a lot of threads going, the title tells me what a thread set out to do, but not where it stands now. To find out, I have to open it and read back through it.

I'd like an optional one-line status for each thread, such as "Fix merged, waiting on CI" or "Needs a decision on the schema change". A cheap model would generate it and refresh it periodically, for example once a thread has been idle for N minutes.

How it could work:

• It's off by default, with a setting to turn it on and to choose N.
• It's generated outside the thread's own session, so it doesn't touch the thread's context or prompt cache. It could use the same model T3 already uses for titles.
• It only refreshes if the thread has changed since the last status, so idle threads don't keep spending tokens.
• It shows somewhere you can read it without opening the thread, such as the sidebar row.

This is related to two other discussions, but neither covers it. #7560 is a one-time recap in the timeline when you come back to a thread, so you have to open the thread to see it. #11744 keeps titles up to date, but a title is a poor place for current status, since it should stay a stable name you can recognize. A comment there suggests a status bar instead, and this is one version of that idea.

The workaround today is opening each thread, or asking the agent where things stand, which costs a turn.