I wired up a stream deck to perform long-running tasks. Very much tailored to the kind of HCI that I prefer, so I can be interrupt driven versus checking on status all the time.

Eg: push a button, it shows that it's working for a while, then strongly flashes when it's done (success/failure). When you have it right under the monitor, it's like a macro pad for long-running things.

This reminds me of some of the very early peripherals you'd see on the Alto and other computers. I was surprised something like this didn't seem to exist, but maybe I'm just terrible at searching.