diff --git a/src/renderer/components/chat/items/linkedTool/renderHelpers.tsx b/src/renderer/components/chat/items/linkedTool/renderHelpers.tsx
index 634ee641..4b64eed4 100644
--- a/src/renderer/components/chat/items/linkedTool/renderHelpers.tsx
+++ b/src/renderer/components/chat/items/linkedTool/renderHelpers.tsx
@@ -95,19 +95,92 @@ export function renderInput(toolName: string, input: Record<string, unknown>): R
     );
   }
 
-  // Default: JSON format
+  // Default: key-value format with readable string values
   return (
-    <pre className="whitespace-pre-wrap break-all" style={{ color: COLOR_TEXT }}>
-      {JSON.stringify(input, null, 2)}
-    </pre>
+    <div className="space-y-2" style={{ color: COLOR_TEXT }}>
+      {Object.entries(input).map(([key, value]) => (
+        <div key={key}>
+          <div className="text-xs" style={{ color: COLOR_TEXT_MUTED }}>
+            {key}
+          </div>
+          <pre className="whitespace-pre-wrap break-all">{formatInputValue(value)}</pre>
+        </div>
+      ))}
+    </div>
   );
 }
 
+function formatInputValue(value: unknown): string {
+  if (typeof value === 'string') {
+    return value;
+  }
+  if (typeof value === 'number' || typeof value === 'boolean') {
+    return String(value);
+  }
+  return JSON.stringify(value, null, 2);
+}
+
 /**
  * Renders the output section with theme-aware styling.
  */
+/**
+ * Extracts display text from tool output content.
+ * Handles content block arrays from the API by extracting text fields
+ * and pretty-printing JSON when possible.
+ */
+export function extractOutputText(content: string | unknown[]): string {
+  let displayText: string;
+
+  // Normalize: if content is a string that parses to an array of content blocks, treat as array
+  let normalizedContent: string | unknown[] = content;
+  if (typeof content === 'string') {
+    try {
+      const parsed: unknown = JSON.parse(content);
+      if (Array.isArray(parsed) && parsed.length > 0 && isContentBlock(parsed[0])) {
+        normalizedContent = parsed as unknown[];
+      }
+    } catch {
+      // Not JSON, keep as string
+    }
+  }
+
+  if (typeof normalizedContent === 'string') {
+    displayText = normalizedContent;
+  } else if (Array.isArray(normalizedContent)) {
+    // Extract text from content blocks (e.g. [{"type":"text","text":"..."}])
+    displayText = normalizedContent
+      .map((block) =>
+        typeof block === 'object' && block !== null && 'text' in block
+          ? (block as { text: string }).text
+          : JSON.stringify(block, null, 2),
+      )
+      .join('\n');
+  } else {
+    displayText = JSON.stringify(normalizedContent, null, 2);
+  }
+
+  // Try to pretty-print if the extracted text is valid JSON
+  try {
+    const parsed: unknown = JSON.parse(displayText);
+    displayText = JSON.stringify(parsed, null, 2);
+  } catch {
+    // Not JSON, use as-is
+  }
+
+  return displayText;
+}
+
+function isContentBlock(value: unknown): boolean {
+  return (
+    typeof value === 'object' &&
+    value !== null &&
+    'type' in value &&
+    typeof (value as Record<string, unknown>).type === 'string'
+  );
+}
+
 export function renderOutput(content: string | unknown[]): React.ReactElement {
-  const displayText = typeof content === 'string' ? content : JSON.stringify(content, null, 2);
+  const displayText = extractOutputText(content);
   return (
     <pre className="whitespace-pre-wrap break-all" style={{ color: COLOR_TEXT }}>
       {displayText}
diff --git a/test/renderer/components/renderOutput.test.ts b/test/renderer/components/renderOutput.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..da52e9e0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/renderer/components/renderOutput.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,37 @@
+import { describe, expect, it } from 'vitest';
+
+import { extractOutputText } from '../../../src/renderer/components/chat/items/linkedTool/renderHelpers';
+
+describe('extractOutputText', () => {
+  it('should return plain string as-is', () => {
+    expect(extractOutputText('hello world')).toBe('hello world');
+  });
+
+  it('should pretty-print a plain string that is valid JSON', () => {
+    expect(extractOutputText('{"key":"value"}')).toBe(JSON.stringify({ key: 'value' }, null, 2));
+  });
+
+  it('should extract text from content blocks with plain text', () => {
+    expect(extractOutputText([{ type: 'text', text: 'plain text' }])).toBe('plain text');
+  });
+
+  it('should extract and pretty-print JSON from content blocks', () => {
+    expect(extractOutputText([{ type: 'text', text: '{"key":"value"}' }])).toBe(
+      JSON.stringify({ key: 'value' }, null, 2),
+    );
+  });
+
+  it('should concatenate multiple content blocks with newline', () => {
+    expect(
+      extractOutputText([
+        { type: 'text', text: 'line one' },
+        { type: 'text', text: 'line two' },
+      ]),
+    ).toBe('line one\nline two');
+  });
+
+  it('should fallback to stringify for blocks without text field', () => {
+    const block = { type: 'image', url: 'http://example.com/img.png' };
+    expect(extractOutputText([block])).toBe(JSON.stringify(block, null, 2));
+  });
+});
diff --git a/test/renderer/utils/renderHelpers.test.ts b/test/renderer/utils/renderHelpers.test.ts
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..f1aaa35d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/test/renderer/utils/renderHelpers.test.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,59 @@
+import { describe, expect, it } from 'vitest';
+
+import { extractOutputText } from '../../../src/renderer/components/chat/items/linkedTool/renderHelpers';
+
+describe('renderHelpers', () => {
+  describe('extractOutputText', () => {
+    it('should return plain string content as-is', () => {
+      expect(extractOutputText('hello world')).toBe('hello world');
+    });
+
+    it('should pretty-print string content that is valid JSON', () => {
+      const json = '{"name":"test","value":42}';
+      expect(extractOutputText(json)).toBe('{\n  "name": "test",\n  "value": 42\n}');
+    });
+
+    it('should extract text from content block arrays', () => {
+      const content = [{ type: 'text', text: 'hello world' }];
+      expect(extractOutputText(content)).toBe('hello world');
+    });
+
+    it('should extract and pretty-print JSON from content block arrays', () => {
+      const inner = { teams: [{ id: '1', name: 'Test' }] };
+      const content = [{ type: 'text', text: JSON.stringify(inner) }];
+      expect(extractOutputText(content)).toBe(JSON.stringify(inner, null, 2));
+    });
+
+    it('should handle serialized content block arrays (string wrapping content blocks)', () => {
+      // This is what SemanticStepExtractor produces when content is an array
+      const inner = { teams: [{ id: '1', name: 'Test' }] };
+      const contentBlocks = [{ type: 'text', text: JSON.stringify(inner) }];
+      const serialized = JSON.stringify(contentBlocks);
+
+      const result = extractOutputText(serialized);
+      expect(result).toBe(JSON.stringify(inner, null, 2));
+    });
+
+    it('should handle serialized content blocks with plain text', () => {
+      const contentBlocks = [{ type: 'text', text: 'Some plain text\nwith newlines' }];
+      const serialized = JSON.stringify(contentBlocks);
+
+      const result = extractOutputText(serialized);
+      expect(result).toBe('Some plain text\nwith newlines');
+    });
+
+    it('should join multiple content blocks with newlines', () => {
+      const content = [
+        { type: 'text', text: 'first' },
+        { type: 'text', text: 'second' },
+      ];
+      expect(extractOutputText(content)).toBe('first\nsecond');
+    });
+
+    it('should stringify non-text content blocks', () => {
+      const content = [{ type: 'image', url: 'http://example.com/img.png' }];
+      const result = extractOutputText(content);
+      expect(result).toContain('"type": "image"');
+    });
+  });
+});