Open-DeepSeek-Harness-Desktop

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An open-source macOS desktop app for DeepSeek Harness (dsh) — a Codex / Claude Code desktop counterpart built on top of the harness, with no fork of the upstream kernel.

It wraps the harness's Web UI in a native window: chat with the agent, let it read/write files, run commands, use a terminal, and handle approvals — all locally, no browser tab, no cloud account.

Status: early developer preview. The upstream harness (dsh) is also a developer preview and iterates fast; pin the @deepseek-ai/dsh version and upgrade explicitly.

Features

• Native desktop shell around the full dsh Web UI (chat, sessions, workspace, model settings, terminal, approvals, plan/goal/todo, trajectory).
• Local-first, no account: your API key lives in the app (~/.dsh/.credentials.yaml), your sessions stay on your machine.
• Key self-management: the desktop app does not inherit DEEPSEEK_API_KEY from your shell environment — the key comes only from what you enter in the app (Settings → Models).
• Native extras: macOS menu, Dock badge + notifications for pending approvals/questions, dsh-desktop:// deep link, auto-update (packaged builds).
• Follows upstream, never forks: dsh is used as a dependency; update @deepseek-ai/dsh to track upstream releases.

The orchestration canvas

The plugin orchestration engine ships with a visual canvas: pick nodes (skills, tools, event hooks) from the library, wire them into a flow on the canvas, and configure each node in the inspector. The compiled flow becomes a reusable agent preset.

Run (development)

Requires Node.js ≥ 22 and pnpm.

pnpm install
pnpm dev

The app spawns a local dsh web server on a random loopback port and opens it in a native window.

Build your own installable package

Anyone can build a dmg — no certificates needed.

pnpm install
pnpm dist          # macOS dmg for your current architecture (arm64/x64)
# → release/dsh-desktop-<version>-<arch>.dmg

Notes for self-builders:

• Signing/notarization is optional. Without a certificate you get an unsigned dmg; the first launch shows a Gatekeeper warning — right-click the app → Open (or xattr -cr /Applications/dsh-desktop.app) to run it.
• The packaging config is fully generic — no personal signing credentials are committed. Maintainers sign by injecting their Apple credentials as environment variables / CI secrets (see .env.example and .github/workflows/release.yml).
• We deliberately build with asar: false so the spawned dsh child can resolve its plugin packages through real files on disk.

Auto-update

Packaged builds check GitHub Releases for updates via electron-updater (publish: github). This requires the release artifacts to be attached to a GitHub Release (see the release.yml workflow). Unsigned local builds skip this.

Troubleshooting

• No API key / model unavailable: open Settings → Models in the app and enter your key. The desktop app intentionally ignores ambient DEEPSEEK_API_KEY from the shell.
• Packaged app won't start: make sure you built on the same architecture you're running (arm64 vs x64); the packaging follows your machine's arch.
• Dev vs packaged behave differently: the packaged app runs dsh under Electron's Node (ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE) with --expose-internals, which the harness's config-watch HMR service requires.

License

MIT. The upstream kernel is DeepSeek Harness (MIT).

Acknowledgements

• DeepSeek Harness — the agent harness this app is built on.
• Electron and electron-builder.