.... energy transfer. That notion is added much later,
logically.
Logically?????
1) The notion of force came before the notion of energy _historically_.
This is true but nearly irrelevant.
2) Many textbooks present force before work.
3) Item (2) is not a law of nature. It is possible to present the
notion of energy first, and get quite far with it before introducing
any notion of force. As an example (far from the only example) the
motion of a pendulum can be understood as a repeated exchange of KE
<--> PE.
This even has various pedagogical advantages. Some advantages stem
from the fact that energy is a scalar.
4) Neither approach enjoys an overwhelming advantage. So if you want
to introduce force before energy, go ahead ... but please don't pretend
there is any "logical" necessity for doing so.