Introduction

DeepSeek Harness (DSH) adopts a plugin-based architecture, aiming to expand the capability boundaries of models by extending tools. In Chinese-language information retrieval, the Zhihu community has accumulated extensive experience sharing, product reviews, and technical practices. The dsh-zhihu-search plugin integrates with the Zhihu Open Platform official API, providing DSH with the ability to search Zhihu in-site content, the global index, and “Zhihu Direct Answer.” Results include citation links. This plugin is not implemented via web crawling, ensuring traceability of information.

Feature Overview

After installing the plugin, the model gains three main tools:

  1. In-site search: Search within the Zhihu community, with sorting by upvotes, comments, or time.
  2. Global index search: Use Zhihu’s global index for search, with filtering by domain and time.
  3. Zhihu Direct Answer: Provide a comprehensive answer based on the model, delivering a well-structured response.

Installation

Before installation, ensure the environment meets the following requirements:
* Node.js: Version must be 20 or higher.
* DeepSeek Harness (DSH): Version must be between >=0.1.7-alpha.1 and <0.3.0 (for example, 0.1.7-rc.2 or higher).

The installation command is as follows:

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-zhihu-search

Usage Instructions

After successful installation, the model can call the following functions. Parameter details are as follows:

Used to retrieve questions, answers, and articles within Zhihu, with multi-dimensional sorting support.

zhihu_search(query, count, sortField, order, minValue, publishedAfter, publishedBefore)
  • query (string, required): Search keyword. Best results are achieved with Chinese.
  • count (integer): Number of results to return. Default is 5. Range is 1-10.
  • sortField (enum): Sorting field. Default is default. Optional values include voteUpCount (upvotes), commentCount (comments), and editTime (time).
  • order (enum): Sort direction. Default is desc. Effective only when sortField is specified. Allowed values are asc or desc.
  • minValue (number): Lower bound (inclusive) for the sorting field. Must be used together with sortField. Note: This parameter filters only the candidates returned in the current search; it does not imply that Zhihu has no content with higher upvotes.
  • publishedAfter (string): Only content published after this date. Format: YYYY-MM-DD.
  • publishedBefore (string): Only content published before this date. Format: YYYY-MM-DD.

Uses Zhihu’s global index for search. Results may be mixed with Zhihu in-site content.

zhihu_global_search(query, count, site, searchDb)
  • query (string, required): Search keyword.
  • count (integer): Number of results to return. Default is 8. Range is 1-20.
  • site (string): Search on a specified domain, such as github.com. Domain matching is exact; subdomains (such as news.qq.com) must be searched separately, and Zhihu domains are not supported.
  • searchDb (enum): Index database type. Default is all. Optional values include all (all), realtime (latest-leaning), and static (long-term indexed).

Zhihu Direct Answer (zhihu_zhida)

Provides a comprehensive answer rather than a simple list of search results.

zhihu_zhida(question, mode, includeReasoning)
  • question (string, required): The question to ask. More specific Chinese descriptions yield better results.
  • mode (enum): Answer mode. Default is thinking. Optional values include fast (fast answer), thinking (deep thinking), and agent (agent multi-step retrieval).
  • includeReasoning (boolean): Whether to return the reasoning process. Default is false.

Configuration and Notes

Configure Access Secret

This plugin uses the Zhihu Open Platform API and requires a secret key to work.

  1. Go to Plugins → Installed in the DSH sidebar.
  2. Find and click Zhihu Search to open the details page.
  3. Enter the Access Secret in the configuration section.
  4. The Access Secret is stored in DSH’s credential storage and is not written into the configuration file, which improves security.

Important Notes

  • Version compatibility: If the DSH version is lower than 0.1.7-alpha.1, the plugin page may not display the configuration entry, but the feature can still work normally.
  • Result boundaries:
    • Search results are text summaries, do not include HTML tags, and do not include images from the article bodies.
    • The minValue parameter limits only the current result set; it does not imply that Zhihu has no content with higher upvotes.
    • The site parameter for global search uses exact matching, so fuzzy matching cannot be used to obtain subdomain content.
  • Direct answer risk: zhihu_zhida returns generated content, which may contain errors. For important conclusions, verify them independently.

Ecosystem Background

The DeepSeek Harness plugin ecosystem emphasizes “everything is a plugin,” aiming to enable developers to build agents by combining tools. This plugin is maintained by community developers and is not an item listed in the official DeepSeek app store, but it follows the open-source license (MIT). For more plugin details, see SkillHub.