Display simple agent thought outputs as alternative to intermediate steps

[thepatrickchin]

Is this a new feature, an improvement, or a change to existing functionality?

New Feature

How would you describe the priority of this feature request

Medium

Please provide a clear description of problem this feature solves

Non-technical users find the Intermediate Steps displayed in agent responses to be too complicated and business users don't want to see the "technical mumbo-jumbo". However if we disable the intermediate steps, there is no sense of progression aside from the tiny spinner and "Stop Generating" button. Some tools in our workflow take a minute to run so it feels like the agent is not responding without the intermediate steps being displayed.

Describe your ideal solution

I propose adding a simple thought output as a user-friendly alternative to the intermediate steps UI. It would display LLM thoughts, show tool/function calls, and allow agent developers to emit custom process updates.

Additional context

No response

Code of Conduct

• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct
• I have searched the open feature requests and have found no duplicates for this feature request

[AnuradhaKaruppiah]

@ericevans-nv pls review