I agree agents can break flow but I think the bigger issue is they hide too much, not that they're too intrusive.

Most agent tools right now don't give you good visibility into what sub-agents are doing or what decisions they're making. You zoom out, let it run, come back to a mess. Tools like OpenCode and Amazon's CLI Agent Orchestrator are trying to fix this - letting you watch what each agent is actually doing and step in to correct or redirect.

OpenCode actually removed the ability to message sub-agents directly. I get why - people would message one after it finished, the conversation would fork off, and the main orchestrator lost track. But I don't love that fix because being able to correct or pivot a sub-agent before it finishes was genuinely useful. They bandaided a real problem by removing a good feature.

Honestly the model that works best for me is treating agents like junior devs working under a senior lead. The expert already knows the architecture and what they want. The agents help crank through the implementation but you're reviewing everything and holding them to passing tests. That's where the productivity gain actually is. When non-developers try to use agents to produce entire systems with no oversight that's where things fall apart.

So I wouldn't want agent tools to be "calm" and fade into the background. I want full transparency into what they're doing at all times because that's how you catch wrong turns early. The tooling is still early and rough but it keeps getting better at supporting experts rather than trying to replace them.