DeepSeek Harness (DSH) extends functionality through a plugin mechanism. For research scenarios that require structured workflows and specific tools, dsh-researchcraft provides a ready-to-use configuration. It integrates ResearchCraft’s scientific skill set, Living Lab Notebook, and specialized sub-agents into DSH’s Web UI and Agent.

Plugin Overview

  • Name: dsh-researchcraft
  • Positioning: Workflow
  • Maintainer: raktim-mondol
  • License: MIT

Installation and Enablement

Before installing this plugin, ensure that DeepSeek Harness CLI (dsh) is correctly installed and running.

Installation Command

Run the following command to add the plugin. This creates the researchcraft profile configuration file if it does not exist:

dsh plugin --profile researchcraft add github:raktim-mondol/dsh-researchcraft

Updating and Local Installation

If you need to update to the latest version:

dsh plugin --profile researchcraft update dsh-researchcraft

For local development or debugging, you can add a local path directly:

dsh plugin --profile researchcraft add /path/to/dsh-plugin

Profile Configuration Requirements

When configuring the researchcraft profile, ensure that @deepseek-ai/dsh-web-app is listed before dsh-researchcraft.

Core Features

This plugin primarily provides the following capabilities:

  1. ResearchCraft Agent Preset
    Includes specific persona settings, research system prompts, and connector configurations. This preset integrates academic search, PaperMemory, and semantic search, but it must be explicitly selected in chat.

  2. Scientific Skill Catalog
    Integrates multiple open-source skill libraries:

    • Domains and Methodologies: 140 domain skills (chemistry, genomics, etc.) and 16 research methodology skills.
    • Profession-Specific Skills: 503 profession-specific skills (accelerator physicists, zoologists, actuaries, etc.).
    • Professional Skills: Includes specific skills such as drug discovery, data science pipelines, hyperparameter optimization, and scientific illustration.

  3. Toolset
    Provides the following tools:

    • image_generate: Generate scientific concept diagrams.
    • sci_inspect: Inspect scientific file formats (chemistry, structure, mass spectrometry, etc.).
    • latex_compile: Compile LaTeX files into PDF.
    • pdf_to_markdown: Convert PDFs to Markdown.
    • modal_run / runpod_run: Submit remote GPU/CPU compute jobs.
    • workflows: Workflow management.

  4. MCP Connectors
    Includes parallel_search (parallel search), consensus_search (consensus search), and papermemory (paper memory).

  5. Living Lab Notebook
    Provides notebook tools for recording, reading, and exporting experiment logs in JSONL format, with support for exporting as Markdown and a Zip archive.

Operation and Usage

Start the Web UI provided by the plugin:

dsh --profile researchcraft

Or use the shared launcher:

dsh-researchcraft

Usually, the interface opens at http://127.0.0.1:3080.

Preset Selection

After installing the plugin, a “ResearchCraft” option appears in the Agent preset selector, but this option does not replace the default preset (such as “Standard mode” or “PTC mode”). New sessions still default to the previous preset; manually switch:

  1. Start a new session.
  2. Click the preset selector at the top of the message box.
  3. Select ResearchCraft.

Notes

  1. Single-Interface Limitation
    dsh-web, dsh-tui, dsh-martty, and dsh-researchcraft share $DSH_HOME, including port 3080 and the zvec-grep daemon. Only one DSH interface can be run at a time. If the port is in use, check it first:
    ss -ltnp | grep 3080

  1. Background Process Cleanup
    When terminating the process directly with Ctrl+C, the background daemon may not fully exit. Before restarting, run zg server off to stop the daemon, or use the shared launcher scripts/dsh-launch.

  2. Global Defaults Clearing
    Switching to another profile (such as dsh-tui) clears the researchcraft defaults saved in the global settings.yaml. If you later switch back to dsh-tui and use that global default, Agent startup will fail because dsh-tui does not have the plugin installed.

Conclusion

dsh-researchcraft provides DeepSeek Harness users with a complete research workflow infrastructure. With the integrated skill libraries, MCP connectors, and notebook tools, you can quickly set up a professional research environment in DSH.