Introduction

DeepSeek Harness (DSH) uses an “everything is a plugin” architecture. However, when managing Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, enabling them globally often means unnecessary resource consumption or tool noise. Developers need fine-grained, per-session control of MCP tools to avoid interfering with unrelated context.

What It Is

dsh-live-mcp is a DSH plugin maintained by bingaha, providing per-session MCP control for the DeepSeek Harness Web GUI. It allows users to enable or disable MCP servers within a single conversation and apply the tool set immediately without changing the global configuration.

Core Features

  • Per-session control, applied immediately: Each session independently selects the MCP servers it needs. You can toggle them mid-session from the settings page or the status bar above the input box, and the change takes effect on the next model request.
  • Workspace defaults for new conversations: The MCP panel on the settings page can set a default disabled list for new conversations in the current workspace. By default, this list is saved independently by cwd and is used only when creating a blank new conversation. It does not change the global MCP enabled state or connections.
  • Session status at a glance: A persistent MCP capability status bar appears above the input box. It clearly shows the number and names of MCP servers available in the current session. You can click to toggle them on or off per session, and the state persists with the session.
  • Complete MCP management: MCP servers support both stdio and streamable-http forms, with support for connection testing, editing, enabling/disabling, and deletion.
  • Zero intrusion, reliable persistence: Built on the official SDK, it fully preserves the DSH source code and SKILL.md unchanged. MCP configuration is persisted to ~/.dsh/mcp.json, and per-session selections are automatically cleaned up when the session is archived.
  • Skill policy visualization: It parses the invocation policy in the SKILL.md front matter in read-only mode and displays it with color coding, making it easy to quickly understand how a skill can be used.

Installation and Enablement

Prerequisites: Node.js >= 22.19 and the dsh command-line tool installed.

git clone https://github.com/bingaha/dsh-live-mcp.git
cd dsh-live-mcp
dsh plugin --profile web add link:$(pwd)
dsh web

Typical Usage

After installation, manage skills and servers in the “Skills and MCP” panel on the settings page. Above the input box in any session, an MCP capability status bar is displayed. You can use it to view the MCP servers available in the current session and browse project-level and user-level skills grouped by source. MCP supports creating new entries via form or JSON for both stdio and streamable-http forms.

Use Cases and Notes

This plugin is suitable for developers who need fine-grained management of MCP tool sets and want to isolate tool calls across different sessions. Note: the plugin runs with the permissions of the current dsh process. You should inspect the source code and license (MIT) before installing it. This project is forked from zebbkira/dsh-skills-mcp-manager.

Summary

dsh-live-mcp addresses the fragmented MCP management issue in DSH environments and provides hierarchical control from the global level to the session level. For more details, see GitHub or the SkillHub directory.