Goal
Turn the Cowork desktop and mobile clients from a feature-rich but fragile/internal-feeling UI into a stable, responsive, accessible product that users can trust during long-running agent work.
This tracker was produced from code-backed UI audits of the v1.2.21 snapshot and the July 2026 repository audit. It separates confirmed correctness defects from performance, accessibility, design-system, and product-flow improvements.
Recommended execution order
Wave 0 — Stop crashes and data loss
- #210
- #211
These should block a stability release.
Wave 1 — State ownership and operational reliability
- #212
- #213
- #214
- #215
- #216
- #217
- #218
- #224
Key dependencies:
- #212 should land before relying on draft preservation in #214, #230, or #232.
- #217 provides shared mutation/feedback behavior for Settings, Canvas, and creation flows.
- #211 provides the safe persistence layer required by the editor work in #232.
Wave 2 — Streaming smoothness, file I/O, scrolling, and layout
- #219
- #220
- #221
- #222
- #223
These workstreams can mostly run in parallel. Establish performance counters before and after #219 and #222 so gains are measurable.
Wave 3 — Accessibility and visual system
- #225
- #227
- #226
Suggested ownership:
- Accessibility engineer: #225
- Design-system engineer: #227 and #226
Land contrast/focus/token foundations before finalizing screenshot baselines.
Wave 4 — Product and workflow improvements
- #228
- #229
- #230
- #231
- #232
- #233
- #234
These can be delegated by surface:
- Navigation/context: #228, #229
- Creation flows: #230, #231
- Canvas: #232
- Settings: #233
- Onboarding: #234
Continuous quality gate
- #235
Start the deterministic Electron harness early. Add regression cases from each completed issue as it lands, then enable the full visual/accessibility/performance matrix after #221, #225, and #227 establish the intended behavior.
Release gates
Before calling this program complete:
- No known P0/P1 crash, file-corruption, draft-loss, or navigation-hijack path remains.
- A 1,000-delta response meets agreed publication/render budgets.
- A 1,000-file project meets agreed request/render budgets.
- Chat scroll position remains user-controlled during streaming and across navigation.
- Core screens work at 640, 800, 1024, and 1240px.
- Light, dark, reduced-motion, and forced/high-contrast modes pass the agreed matrix.
- Representative screens have no serious Axe violations.
- All foreground mutations have acknowledged success/failure states.
- Release screenshots are generated from the current application.
- The Electron smoke suite runs deterministically without provider credentials.
Audit categories represented
- React/runtime correctness
- Async file and navigation races
- Draft and prompt ownership
- Streaming/store performance
- File-system I/O
- Scroll stability
- Responsive layout
- Keyboard and screen-reader accessibility
- Contrast, typography, focus, motion, and visual hierarchy
- New Chat, Research, Task, Canvas, Settings, and onboarding UX
- Electron end-to-end and regression coverage
Second-audit reconciliation
Source: Cowork UI Audit — July 2026
The broader audit largely confirmed the original desktop backlog and added the following net-new work.
Additional desktop P0/P1
- #237 — Stop/steer control and composer submission safety
- #238 — Privacy and Remote Access safeguards
- #239 — First-paint theme, startup, recovery, and connection states
- #240 — Conversation-first active Task workspace
- #241 — Complete Research lifecycle
- #242 — Sidebar search and action parity
- #246 — Stable mention highlight/picker geometry
- #247 — Semantic copying and attachment-only turns
- #248 — Truthful tool-failure history
Mobile stabilization lane
- #243 — Mobile composer state, failed-send recovery, and Stop
- #245 — Mobile streaming scroll/control/performance
- #244 — Native tabs and mobile accessibility contract
Updated existing issues
The audit's additional detail was folded into:
- #216 — answer/approval idempotency
- #219 — live Markdown parsing and composer/feed isolation
- #223 — bottom-offset ownership, stable Activity shell, and “N new”
- #225 — timer/drop accessibility details
- #227 —
--mutedcollision, mobile contrast, and high-contrast pack - #228 — Preview as an inspector tab
- #232 — Quick preview vs Canvas and PPTX/slide coherence
- #233 — Settings content IA and long-list search
- #234 — shorter onboarding and persistent Finish setup
- #235 — expanded deterministic regression journeys
Revised immediate release blockers
- Desktop crash/data-loss blockers from this audit are complete.
- Mobile companion stabilization blockers from this audit are complete.
Dependencies
- #212 should land before #237 relies on revision-owned draft recovery.
- #213 and #217 provide correctness/feedback foundations for #239.
- #231 covers Task creation; #240 covers the active Task workspace.
- #230 covers Research creation; #241 covers the ongoing lifecycle.
- #225 and #227 provide shared accessibility/design foundations for #244, #246, and #247.