Introduction

When running agents in the DSH (DeepSeek Harness) environment, task status is often hidden behind the terminal window. When an agent task completes, requires manual input, or awaits approval, users can easily miss these critical states. dsh-win-notify is a DSH host-side plugin that uses the Windows WinRT Toast Notification API to show real system-level notifications in the scenarios described above and persists the messages in the system Notification Center.

Core Features

The plugin focuses on providing visible feedback when user intervention or a status change is needed.

  1. Task completion notification: When the user-visible root agent status changes from running to idle, a notification is shown. The notification body preferentially displays the actual session title, for example, “Completed: ‘’”.
  2. Your input is required: When the ask_user_question interface is called, a notification is shown the moment the question is presented, including a summary and the number of questions.
  3. Your approval is required: When an Agent requests operation approval, a notification is shown, including the requested tool name and reason.
  4. Branded display: The notification source is displayed as “DeepSeek Harness”, with a whale icon on a black background (multiple frames, 16–256px), ensuring clear identity in the Notification Center.
  5. Noise control: Completion, questions, and approvals from sub-agents, AgentTeams members, or workflow workers never disturb the user. At least 10 seconds must elapse between two “task completion” notifications for the same agent.
  6. Persistence in Notification Center: Toast notifications enter the system Notification Center and do not disappear automatically with the banner.
  7. Zero dependencies: The plugin itself has no external runtime dependencies. Notification delivery is emitted directly from host-side events, and auxiliary Toast functionality is completed by a packaged precompiled .NET 4 EXE. If the EXE is missing, the system-provided csc.exe can rebuild it automatically.

Installation and Enablement

After installing the plugin, restart the DSH Web service to make it take effect.

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-win-notify

Running this command installs the plugin to ~/.dsh/profiles/web and automatically adds it to dsh.profile.bundles according to the configuration.

Typical Usage

  • Task completion: After the agent run finishes, a “Completed: xxx” prompt appears in the bottom-right corner of the desktop and remains in the Notification Center.
  • Question: When the agent needs you to confirm an option, the system immediately shows a “Your input is required” prompt.
  • Approval: Before the agent attempts to call a sensitive tool (such as file read/write), a “Your approval is required” prompt is shown first.

System Requirements and Limitations

  • Operating system: Windows 10 / 11 only.
  • Non-Windows environments: After installing on Linux or macOS, the plugin does not raise an error, but it enters an idle state and registers no events.
  • How it takes effect: After installation or update, the dsh web process must be restarted to activate the new functionality.

Verification

If you want to ensure that the plugin build and logic are correct, run the following command for full validation:

npm run check

Conclusion

dsh-win-notify uses the native Windows notification mechanism to solve the status visibility problem when DSH runs in the background. It provides a clear feedback path and includes a built-in noise control mechanism, making it suitable for workflows that require continuous monitoring of agent status.

GitHub: https://github.com/kongdexu/dsh-win-notify