Introduction

In the DeepSeek Harness (DSH) ecosystem, long-form creation often faces difficulties such as maintaining character consistency and managing chaotic state. The DSH philosophy is “everything is a plugin,” and dsh-novel-craft is designed for this purpose. It borrows the methodology of story-craft to solve problems of structured management and cross-chapter state synchronization, distilling writing conventions, character states, and worldbuilding facts into manageable state packages.

Plugin Overview

This plugin is maintained by winston-hoo and developed based on DeepSeek Harness (DSH). Its core value lies in providing a complete workflow from character modeling to chapter output and usage monitoring, helping creators maintain coherence across long-form writing.

Core Features

The plugin provides the following core tools:

  • Project setup: Initialize a novel project with novel_create_project.
  • Character management:
    • novel_upsert_character: Create or update a character card, supporting a five-dimension template and S/A/B/C tiers.
    • novel_list_characters / novel_get_character: View character summaries or retrieve the full text of a single character card.
  • State management:
    • novel_get_state: Inject the state package, which includes writing conventions, facts, foreshadowing, character states, hooks, and plot threads.
    • novel_update_state: Write back the state package and update the five files under the state/ directory.
  • Writing and indexing:
    • novel_write_chapter: Write or append a chapter and automatically generate a word-count index.
  • Usage monitoring:
    • novel_balance: View the balance and peak/off-peak periods.
    • novel_usage: View today’s usage and the usage ledger.

Installation and Activation

The installation command is as follows. It only depends on the DSH host’s peer dependencies (cordis/schemastery/dsh-tools/dsh-session) and requires no additional installation packages:

dsh plugin --profile headless add github:winston-hoo/dsh-novel-craft

Typical Usage

Before using it, set the model key (required for balance/usage). A typical writing workflow is as follows:

  1. Create a new project: Use novel_create_project to create a new project, such as “A Win-Win Life” (urban) or other themes.
  2. Chapter loop: It is recommended to treat one chapter as one task and execute get_state → (optionally get_character) → write_chapter → update_state in sequence.
  3. Manuscript library structure: The default manuscript library is located at ~/.dsh/novel and contains project.json, characters/, chapters/, state/, and usage.json.

Use Cases and Notes

This plugin is suitable for users who need structured management of characters and worldbuilding, writing driven by conventions, automatic accumulation of the manuscript library, and usage monitoring.

  • Runtime permissions: The plugin runs with the permissions of the current DSH process.
  • Source review: Before installation, review the source code and license.
  • Pricing configuration: The plugin’s peak/off-peak pricing is aligned with DeepSeek’s official pricing. To change prices, edit the constants at the top of src/usage.ts.

License

MIT © 2026 Winston

Summary

Through state packages and structured character cards, dsh-novel-craft addresses state consistency and writing convention issues in long-form novel creation. For more details, visit the project homepage: GitHub