dsh-desktop

DeepSeek Harness in a native desktop window — built the way the harness
itself is built: as a plugin, not a fork.

dsh-desktop is a DeepSeek Harness
profile that composes the standard bundles (dsh-base + dsh-web-app) with a
small plugin — this repo's dsh-desktop-shell — which opens the harness web
surface in a native Tauri window: custom title bar, tray icon, native
notifications, a real file-manager panel, and one-click updates.

The idea: desktop as a plugin

DeepSeek Harness is built on the principle that everything is a plugin:
models, tools, sandboxes, session storage, the UI — even the agent loop
itself. The desktop experience should follow the same rule.

This project adds a native window without forking or repackaging the
harness. The profile is plain composition:

dsh --profile desktop      →   dsh-base + dsh-web-app + dsh-desktop-shell

That one decision buys a lot:

• Always in sync. The harness keeps updating; so do you. There is no fork
  to rebase and no bundled copy to refresh — upstream releases land in your
  profile exactly the way they always do.
• Composable. The shell is one row in your profile's bundle list. Keep
  your other bundles, swap the web app, add plugins — the desktop layer stays
  a layer, not a replacement.
• Small. The native client is a Tauri binary, not a bundled browser plus a
  full runtime. Your dsh stays your dsh.
• Honest trade-off. The plugin approach assumes you already run dsh. If
  you want a single installer with zero prerequisites, a standalone app that
  bundles its own runtime is the better fit. If you want the desktop to be
  part of your harness — same config, same workspaces, same plugins — this
  is the one that fits.

Features

• Native window with an app icon in the dock/taskbar and a custom title
  bar (drag region, minimize/maximize/close) drawn by the web surface,
  matching the app theme on every platform. The window title follows the
  chat open in the UI right now (DeepSeek Harness — <chat title>), not
  the last started agent.
• Explorer panel — a real file manager. Browse any folder (not just the
  workspace) with breadcrumbs, back/forward, name filter and recursive
  search, sort by name/size/date. Right-click or keyboard (F2 rename, Del to
  trash, arrows) to create, rename, copy, cut, paste, delete, open
  externally. Files changed or created since your last look are marked live
  (auto-refresh). A Preview tab renders markdown with the app's own
  renderer (headings, tables, task lists, syntax-highlighted code with a
  copy button, math — and relative images resolved from the local disk),
  renders mermaid diagrams (bundled with the app, works offline) and
  CSV/TSV tables with line/bar charts, opens local .html pages in a
  sandboxed frame, shows images (click to zoom, dimensions),
  syntax-highlights source code files (shiki, the app's own highlighter),
  and falls back to a hex dump for binary files. A URL bar in the preview
  opens any web page (external links land in the system browser). Previews
  re-render automatically when the file changes on disk (text 1 MiB /
  images 8 MiB caps).
• Wired into the harness. Right-click a file → Send path to agent
  inserts its workspace-relative path into the composer; images can be
  attached to a message — or just drag an image file into the window:
  it lands in the composer as a real attachment (any other file inserts its
  path). The workspace picker (hero + sidebar + settings) is the panel in
  "choose a folder" mode instead of an OS dialog.
• Links that work. Every http(s)/mailto link in the chat and in
  markdown previews opens in your system browser — no more dead
  target="_blank" clicks inside the webview.
• Chat search (Ctrl/Cmd+F). A quick-search bar over the conversation:
  live case-insensitive highlighting, Enter/↑/↓ to jump between matches,
  Esc to leave. Highlights are painted over the text without touching the
  message DOM, so streaming re-renders never corrupt the chat.
• Tray + close-to-tray. Closing the window hides it; running agents keep
  working. The tray menu carries a live agent monitor: every running
  agent with a refreshable log tail and a Stop agent action, plus a
  badge on the tray icon when an agent finishes (cleared from the menu).
• Native notifications on agent finish, error, and question events.
• One-click updates. Download, apply, restart. Nothing is applied
  automatically; background checks are opt-in (off by default).
• Workspace selection via the OS folder dialog, or drag-and-drop a folder
  into the window.
• A dsh-desktop tab inside the harness Settings for desktop
  preferences.

Screenshot

DeepSeek Harness in a native window: the harness web surface with the
custom title bar and the explorer panel.

Install

Requires the dsh CLI. Rust is needed only for the first build from
source — prebuilt client binaries skip it.

Pre-built installers per platform — .deb (Linux), .dmg (macOS), NSIS
.exe (Windows) — are published on the
releases page. One
installer places the client binary and registers an app-menu entry; the
first launch bootstraps the desktop profile into dsh and opens the window.

From source (Linux/macOS dev path):

git clone https://github.com/s3yf1337/dsh-desktop && cd dsh-desktop
./install.sh              # full bootstrap (builds the client if needed)
./install.sh --no-build   # use an existing client binary, never build
./install.sh --rebuild    # force a client rebuild
dsh-desktop

The client binary itself is also a plugin installer:

dsh-desktop-shell install              # bootstrap the profile + install client/launcher
dsh-desktop-shell install --prefix /usr  # OS-package layout (menus under /usr/share)
dsh-desktop-shell                      # install, then boot the profile
dsh-desktop-shell --version

Runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.

License

MIT