Introduction

In DSH’s web sessions, multi-turn inputs, follow-up instructions, and assistant replies are mixed together, making it troublesome to locate a specific message in long sessions. dsh-tick-rail provides a column of tick marks next to the conversation, using user messages as indices for quick jumping and previewing.

What is this

dsh-tick-rail is a tick-rail conversation navigator for the DeepSeek Harness Web UI. The repository is maintained by caisiyang123 with an MIT license. It is a pure web client plugin with an empty host-side implementation, usable in both the browser UI and DSH Desktop after installation.

Core Features

After installation, the rail generates tick marks based on user messages:

  • One user message corresponds to one tick mark; assistant replies do not occupy ticks.
  • When the mouse moves over the rail, the highlighted position exhibits peak decay: the center tick is the longest, tapering evenly on both sides.
  • Upon hovering, a snippet preview of the corresponding message appears next to the rail.
  • Clicking anywhere on the rail smoothly scrolls the conversation to the corresponding user message.
  • The rail is keyboard focusable: arrow keys move the peak, Enter or Space jumps to the message, and Escape closes the preview.
  • Automatically hidden when there are fewer than 3 user messages; does not render any content when there is no open session.

Implementation Details

It is a pure web client plugin with an empty host-side implementation. The client module is mounted in the shell.overlay slot, locates messages via data-chat-flow-* attributes on the session DOM, and uses --dsw-alias-* theme variables to adapt to light and dark modes.

Installation and Enablement

First, download the .tgz package from the latest release, then execute:

dsh plugin add ./dsh-tick-rail-<version>.tgz

Restart dsh web after installation to apply changes. If a web process is currently running, you can stop it and execute again:

dsh web

You can also install directly from GitHub:

dsh plugin add github:caisiyang123/dsh-tick-rail

If installation is interrupted by an error related to allowBuilds, add the key provided in the pnpm output to the pnpm-workspace.yaml file in the profile directory, then execute the installation command again.

Typical Usage

The following is the standard path to verify the rail in an existing session:

  1. Move the mouse over the rail next to the conversation to view the peak highlight and message snippet.
  2. Click the target area on the rail to smoothly scroll the conversation to the corresponding user message.
  3. When using the keyboard, first focus the rail; use arrow keys to move the peak, Enter or Space to jump, and Escape to close the preview.

Applicable Scenarios and Notes

Suitable for users debugging multi-turn conversations in DSH Web or DSH Desktop who wish to reduce scrolling for searching. Note the following before use:

  • The plugin runs with the permissions of the current dsh process. It is recommended to check the repository source code, version, dependencies, and license before installing.
  • The license for this plugin is MIT; the optional peer dependency is @deepseek-ai/cordis.
  • When installing from GitHub, pnpm may require build authorization; errors related to allowBuilds may still appear even if the package has no build steps.
  • The rail does not display when there are fewer than 3 user messages and does not render when there is no open session; this is expected behavior.

Short Conclusion

dsh-tick-rail transforms user messages in long sessions into an index rail that is hoverable, clickable, and keyboard-operable. GitHub Repository: https://github.com/caisiyang123/dsh-tick-rail. Verified materials did not provide a directory page URL, so no directory page link is attached to this article.