Introduction

DeepSeek Harness (DSH) uses a plugin-based architecture designed to extend platform capabilities. In development or operations scenarios, developers often need agents to execute one-time or recurring tasks at specific times, such as end-of-day handovers, pre-release checks, or periodic dependency reviews. Native DSH mainly handles immediate interactions, so this type of scheduling requirement needs support from a dedicated plugin. This plugin is intended to solve that problem.

Plugin Introduction

The plugin is named dsh-automation, maintained by user alpacachen, and belongs to the “Workflow” category. It allows scheduling and managing one-time and recurring Agent tasks in DeepSeek Harness.

Core Features

The plugin provides the following capabilities:
* Work on schedule: Supports one-time or recurring tasks with cross-timezone settings.
* Preserve conversation: Supports starting a new session or confirming an existing session to preserve context.
* Choose capabilities: Select the Agent, model, and skills for each task.
* Track runs: View summaries, durations, and error messages, and open past sessions.
* Deliver results: Send results to the chat window via dsh-im.
* Maintain control: Supports running, pausing, resuming, or stopping tasks, and allows automatic pause after failures.

Installation and Enabling

Installing the plugin requires using the official install command:

dsh plugin --profile web add @alpacachen/dsh-automation

After installation, restart dsh web, then select “New automation” in the sidebar or directly request task creation in a conversation.

Typical Use Cases

Below are typical task examples based on the official documentation:

  1. End-of-day handover: At 18:00 (Asia/Shanghai) Monday through Friday, read today’s commits and uncommitted changes, and report completed work, next steps, and blockers. Do not modify files.
  2. Pre-release check: At 09:00 tomorrow, read version configuration, release documentation, and uncommitted changes, conclude Ready or Blocked, and list unverified items.
  3. Monday dependency review: At 09:30 on Monday, list available models and skills for selection, inspect the manifest file, and report upgrade priorities and compatibility risks.
  4. Continue investigation: At 10:00 Monday through Friday, pin to the existing investigation session, read the specified logs, and report new evidence based on existing conclusions.
  5. Weekly report: At 17:00 on Friday, read this week’s commits and documents, and generate a concise chat summary.
  6. Maintain project documentation: At 10:00 on the 1st of each month, check whether README commands are consistent with package.json, and only update outdated instructions.

Use Cases and Considerations

When using this plugin, note the following:

  • Version requirements: The plugin currently supports DSH 0.1.7-rc.2 and its current API; older Host versions are not supported.
  • Process running: The DSH process must remain running to execute scheduled tasks. The default single-run limit is 1 hour, and interactive approvals are not granted automatically.
  • Dependency review: Performing dependency review requires available Web tools on the Host.
  • Message delivery: To automatically send reports to chat, configure dsh-im on the same Host, and select and confirm the bot and target in Edit → Message delivery. Creating a task alone does not enable delivery.
  • Documentation maintenance: Maintaining project documentation requires write permissions.
  • License: The plugin uses the MIT License.

Conclusion

This plugin lowers the barrier to managing automation tasks in DSH by providing natural-language scheduling, session continuity, and fine-grained permission control. To learn more or view the source code, visit its GitHub repository.