DeepSeek Harness (DSH) is a tool for developing agents, and its Web UI runs in a browser by default. During long development or debugging sessions, browser tabs can easily pile up, and daily browsing history may become mixed with the development environment. The dsh-desktop-window plugin solves this by opening the DSH Web UI in a standalone application window. This window has no tab bar or address bar and uses a separate browser profile, ensuring isolation from everyday browsing.

Core Features

This plugin provides the following features:

  • Auto Open: Automatically opens a standalone window on startup by default.
  • Manual toggle: Provides a toggle button in the session title bar to open or close the window at any time.
  • Settings control: Provides an auto-open toggle under Settings -> General; the setting is persisted.
  • Branding: Injects the official whale icon and Web Manifest so that the DeepSeek icon appears in the window title bar and when the window is installed as an app.
  • Environment isolation: Uses a separate browser profile located in the %TEMP% directory, leaving regular browsing unaffected.
  • Cross-platform support: Supports Windows 10/11, macOS 11+, and Linux.
  • Process management: When the window is closed, the state is synchronized and the process tree is released.

Installation and Enabling

Before installing, make sure the DeepSeek Harness version is at least 0.1.0-rc.6.

Run the following command to install the plugin:

dsh plugin --profile web add github:fengzhiyushui/dsh-desktop-window

After installation, the dsh web process must be restarted for the configuration to take effect.

Usage

After installing the plugin, run dsh web to start the server. Once the server is ready, the standalone window will open automatically.

  • Toggle window: Click the window button in the session title bar.
  • Control auto open: Go to Settings -> General -> Auto Open, then enable or disable this feature.
  • Adjust browser preferences: Edit the browserCandidates() method in the lib/window-spec.js file to change the browser selection logic.
  • Windows shortcut: On Windows, run the <plugin-dir>\scripts\create-shortcut.ps1 script to create a desktop shortcut.

Configuration and Notes

The plugin configuration file is located at $DSH_HOME/desktop-window.json (default: %USERPROFILE%\.dsh\desktop-window.json). You can edit this JSON file directly or modify it in the settings interface.

{
  "autoOpen": true,
  "cleanProfileOnUnload": false
}
  • autoOpen: Whether to automatically open the window on startup.
  • cleanProfileOnUnload: Whether to delete the dedicated browser profile when the plugin is uninstalled. When set to false, the profile is persisted, and the window will open faster the next time.

Important notes:

  • Taskbar icon: Because the window runs in Chromium --app mode, the Windows taskbar or macOS Dock shows the browser icon by default instead of the whale icon. To display the whale icon, install the page as an app (Edge menu -> Apps -> Install this site as an app).
  • Process state: Closing the standalone window does not stop the dsh process; the two are independent.
  • Operating mechanism: This is a browser window, not an embedded WebView.
  • Authentication: Opening the window does not perform authentication; cross-site requests must check the Origin header.

Ecosystem Background

DeepSeek Harness (DSH) adopts the “everything is a plugin” philosophy, aiming to extend the capabilities of the tool through plugins. dsh-desktop-window is one of the community-maintained plugins, created by developer fengzhiyushui under the MIT license. For more details and source code, visit the GitHub repository or the SkillHub plugin directory.