Introduction

The design philosophy of DeepSeek Harness is “everything is a plugin.” When orchestrating multiple agents or viewing multiple sessions at the same time, traditional approaches often require frequent switching between the sidebar and the main view, interrupting the workflow. dsh-split-screen solves this problem by turning the conversation area directly into a multi-panel workspace, allowing the state and interactions of multiple agents to be displayed in parallel within the same viewport.

Plugin Overview

This is a browser-side DeepSeek Harness plugin for building a split-screen workspace. After installation, users can chat side by side with multiple agents in natively styled panels. It is maintained by YEYEYEYESHIFU and released under the MIT license.

Core Capabilities

The plugin provides the following core features, aiming to remain consistent with DeepSeek’s native interface:

  • Always-On Split-Screen Workspace: Split-screen is the default state, so no mode switching is required. With a single conversation, the interface remains consistent with the standard view, without extra decorations.
  • Drag-to-Split: Drag a conversation from the sidebar to any panel edge (top/bottom/left/right) to split it, or drag it to the center to swap content.
  • Native Appearance and Theming: Panel rendering uses DeepSeek’s native styles, theme variables, and components. It supports dark/light themes and includes details such as user bubbles, thinking rows, tool rows, and the streaming cursor.
  • Fully Interactive Panels: Each panel is an independent real-time session. It supports streaming responses, stopping generation, sending with Enter, line breaks with Shift+Enter, commands, to-do items, as well as pasting images and dragging attachments.
  • Embedded Approval and Questions: When an agent calls ask_user_question or triggers an approval prompt, the input box inside the panel is taken over by a native question card. It supports options, multi-select, free text, skip, and cancel actions.
  • View Tab Support: Chat, trajectory, and plugin views (such as the Context dashboard) can be switched inside a panel, and the details slot for a view (such as conversation trajectory images) is routed to the corresponding panel.
  • Dual Composer Styles: Panels support two input modes: full-screen composer and compact TUI line. You can switch between them with a shortcut, and TUI mode inherits the typography proportions of the input card.
  • Layout Persistence: The split-screen layout is preserved after page refreshes.

Installation and Activation

The installation process requires administrator privileges. Run the following command to install the plugin:

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-split-screen

After installation, you must restart the dsh web service for the split-screen workspace to take effect.

Usage

After enabling it, the workspace operates as follows:

  1. Split a Conversation: Drag a conversation from the sidebar to the edge of an existing panel to create a new panel at the corresponding position.
  2. Load a Conversation: Click a conversation in the sidebar to load it into the currently focused panel.
  3. Adjust Panels: Use the panel title bar buttons (⬎ Add, ⬏ Remove) to control the number of panels; drag the divider between panels to resize them.
  4. Switch Input Mode: In any panel, press Alt+T to switch between “full-screen composer” and “compact TUI line.”
  5. Move Focus: Use Alt+Shift + Arrow Keys to move keyboard focus between adjacent panels.

Note: On macOS, the Alt key corresponds to the Option key.

Compatibility and Environment

  • Version Requirement: This plugin requires DeepSeek Harness 0.1.5 or later. Earlier versions (0.1.1-rc.2 and earlier) cannot run this plugin due to different underlying editor and session service interfaces.
  • Runtime Environment: This is a client-only plugin. All logic runs in the browser and does not affect the functionality of the standard DeepSeek sidebar.

To further enhance the keyboard interaction experience or reading experience, you can use the following plugins together with this plugin:

  • dsh-session-hotkeys: Provides keyboard-first controls for managing sessions, model selection, and message queues via shortcuts in split-screen panels.
  • dsh-result-only-view: Provides a compact results-only read mode to reduce visual distraction. It is suitable for working in parallel across multiple panels.

Conclusion

By reusing DeepSeek’s native rendering logic and interaction patterns, dsh-split-screen provides a lightweight and efficient multi-panel workspace solution. It not only addresses the pain point of switching between multiple tasks, but also improves the smoothness of agent orchestration through persistent layouts and embedded approval functionality.