Claude Code steers, cheap DeepSeek Flash workers do the reading and typing. Each job runs in a disposable copy of your repo and returns a git patch.
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updated Oct 5, 2026
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Flash Agents
Let Claude Code steer, and let a cheap model do the reading and the typing.
Flash Agents is a Claude Code plugin that hands bounded coding work — implement this slice, port these tests, review this diff, map this codebase — to DeepSeek V4.1 Flash workers instead of Claude subagents. Claude keeps the architecture, the acceptance criteria and the final review. The workers spend their tokens, not yours.
Every writing job runs in a disposable copy of your repository and comes back as a patch. Nothing touches your working tree until you (or Claude) apply it.
You ── "add retry with backoff to the API client, with tests" ──► Claude Code (Opus / Sonnet)
│ frames the task, slices it
▼
flash_task / flash_batch (MCP)
│
┌─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
DeepSeek Flash worker DeepSeek Flash worker DeepSeek Flash worker
in a throwaway copy in a throwaway copy in a throwaway copy
│ │ │
└──────────── patch + diffstat, computed by git ────────────┘
│
▼
Claude reviews the diff, runs the tests,
and applies only what it accepts
Why
- Your Claude budget goes to judgement, not keystrokes. Reading 40 files to find a seam, or writing 1,200 lines of adapter and tests, is exactly what burns a session. A worker does it on its own model; Claude reads the result and the diff.
- Workers can't wreck your tree. They work in a copy-on-write clone (milliseconds, no extra
space on APFS/Btrfs/XFS). A worker that runs
rm -rf .deletes a throwaway copy, and you see that as a patch you decline. - You get evidence, not a story.
filesChanged,diffstatand the patch are computed bygitfrom the copy — never taken from the worker's own account of what it did. - Fan-out is built in.
flash_batchruns up to 16 independent tasks in one call, four at a time, and returns each result in task order.
What a worker can actually take on
Measured on a 50k-line Swift app, with Claude steering and reviewing:
| Task | Size | Wall time | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain seam: protocol, adapter, injection into two coordinators, fake, tests | 1,250 lines, 15 tests | 30 min | landed after review; one warning fixed by hand |
| Security fix round on an OAuth/MCP client, 11 findings, each with a fail-before/pass-after test | 1,400 lines | 40 min | landed; review still found one flow defect |
| Test-harness rework: parsing, scope policy, schema table, allow-list | 1,500 lines, 29 tests | 37 min | landed unchanged |
| Read-only security review of the same client against the RFCs | — | 25 min | 11 confirmed findings |
| Mechanical split of a 7,000-line file into 16, 41 scripts re-pointed | 7,900 lines moved | ~60 min | complete |
What it gets wrong — and what Claude therefore still reads itself: flow semantics across a
boundary, policy nuance, and anything outside the files it touched. The delegate skill
encodes that loop, so Claude does it without being told.
Install
You need Claude Code, Node 20+, and Ollama. About five minutes.
1. Install the worker runtime and the model
npm i -g @deepseek-ai/dsh # DeepSeek Harness: runs the workers and their sandbox
ollama signin # the :cloud model runs on Ollama's cloud, under your account
ollama pull deepseek-v4.1-flash:cloud
2. Add the plugin in Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add tomw1808/flash-agents
/plugin install flash-agents@flash-agents
Restart Claude Code when it asks you to.
3. Run the setup once
/flash-agents:setup
It runs the doctor (Node, dsh, Ollama, the model, git), writes the two worker profiles into
~/.dsh/profiles (plus a flash-orchestrator preset for dsh's own UI), and proves the pipeline end to end with one real task. Every failing check
prints the exact command that fixes it.
4. Use it
/flash-agents:delegate add retry with exponential backoff to src/api/client.ts, with tests
Or just ask in plain words — "use flash-agents for this", "fan this out". Claude frames the task, dispatches workers, checks every diff, has a read-only worker review the result, fixes in rounds, and applies the patches it accepts.
What you get
flash_task | One coherent task on one worker. Returns its report and a patch. |
flash_batch | Several independent tasks at once; results come back in task order. |
flash_apply | Land a patch from an earlier call (dryRun to check it first). |
/flash-agents:delegate | The everyday loop: frame → slice → dispatch → verify → review → fix → apply. |
/flash-agents:gauntlet | Several competing builders, cheap critics, and a blind A/B judged by Claude. For problems with more than one plausible approach and a result you can run. |
/flash-agents:setup | One-time install check and smoke test. |
Pass mode: "read-only" for reviews and codebase maps: that call runs in a second process whose
sandbox refuses every write.
Safety, in one paragraph
Three layers stand between a cheap model and your machine. The copy: writing calls never run
in your tree. The sandbox: workers are confined to their workspace by DeepSeek Harness, with
no approval prompts — anything outside fails closed. The wall: a deterministic, model-free
filter refuses reads of secrets (.env, ~/.ssh, ~/.aws, …), writes to .git, destructive git
(reset --hard, push --force, …), catastrophic deletions, and any write outside the workspace.
Each refusal comes back to Claude with a code and a reason. Details, and the live test that proves
each rule, are in docs/design.md.
Configuration
The plugin's settings (/plugin → flash-agents) cover the worker model, how many copies may be
in flight (each is a process, so this is a memory decision; default 2), and where patches live.
Any model your Ollama serves works — smaller local models are just weaker at tool calling.
Limits live in flash.config.json. The defaults: a call is stopped after
10 minutes without any activity (stuck), or 3 hours in total (a ceiling for honest work);
either way, the change so far is salvaged as a patch.
To watch workers live, set a log file and tail -f it — see
Observing a run.
Honest limits
- A running worker can't be steered or cancelled — the harness protocol has no attach or cancel. You can watch it; you can't redirect it. The idle timeout is what stops a stuck one.
- Members of one
flash_batchshare one copy, so they see each other's edits. Give them disjoint files. - Gitignored output isn't carried in the patch. It's named in the result instead.
- The dispatcher is a cheap model too. Occasionally it does the work itself instead of
delegating; that call fails as
NOT_DELEGATED, nothing from it is kept, and a retry usually works. - macOS and Linux. Windows is untested.
Manual install (without the plugin)
git clone https://github.com/tomw1808/flash-agents.git && cd flash-agents
node install.mjs # writes the worker profiles into ~/.dsh
node packages/flash-mcp/lib/index.js doctor # every check, with its fix
claude mcp add flash -- node "$PWD/packages/flash-mcp/lib/index.js" --root /path/to/your/project
node install.mjs --uninstall removes everything the installer wrote. The server speaks plain
MCP over stdio, so any MCP client can use it, not only Claude Code.
Development
npm test # 3 suites, no LLM, no network, about 10 seconds
npm run verify # live end-to-end through the official MCP client; needs Ollama
No runtime dependencies. docs/design.md has the full contract, the safety model, every option, what was verified live, and why things are the way they are.
License
MIT © Thomas Wiesner
Similar repos
Claude Code steers, cheap DeepSeek Flash workers do the reading and typing. Each job runs in a disposable copy of your repo and returns a git patch.
JavaScript
0
25 commits
updated Oct 5, 2026
See what people are saying
README
Flash Agents
Let Claude Code steer, and let a cheap model do the reading and the typing.
Flash Agents is a Claude Code plugin that hands bounded coding work — implement this slice, port these tests, review this diff, map this codebase — to DeepSeek V4.1 Flash workers instead of Claude subagents. Claude keeps the architecture, the acceptance criteria and the final review. The workers spend their tokens, not yours.
Every writing job runs in a disposable copy of your repository and comes back as a patch. Nothing touches your working tree until you (or Claude) apply it.
You ── "add retry with backoff to the API client, with tests" ──► Claude Code (Opus / Sonnet)
│ frames the task, slices it
▼
flash_task / flash_batch (MCP)
│
┌─────────────────────────────┼─────────────────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
DeepSeek Flash worker DeepSeek Flash worker DeepSeek Flash worker
in a throwaway copy in a throwaway copy in a throwaway copy
│ │ │
└──────────── patch + diffstat, computed by git ────────────┘
│
▼
Claude reviews the diff, runs the tests,
and applies only what it accepts
Why
- Your Claude budget goes to judgement, not keystrokes. Reading 40 files to find a seam, or writing 1,200 lines of adapter and tests, is exactly what burns a session. A worker does it on its own model; Claude reads the result and the diff.
- Workers can't wreck your tree. They work in a copy-on-write clone (milliseconds, no extra
space on APFS/Btrfs/XFS). A worker that runs
rm -rf .deletes a throwaway copy, and you see that as a patch you decline. - You get evidence, not a story.
filesChanged,diffstatand the patch are computed bygitfrom the copy — never taken from the worker's own account of what it did. - Fan-out is built in.
flash_batchruns up to 16 independent tasks in one call, four at a time, and returns each result in task order.
What a worker can actually take on
Measured on a 50k-line Swift app, with Claude steering and reviewing:
| Task | Size | Wall time | Outcome |
|---|---|---|---|
| Domain seam: protocol, adapter, injection into two coordinators, fake, tests | 1,250 lines, 15 tests | 30 min | landed after review; one warning fixed by hand |
| Security fix round on an OAuth/MCP client, 11 findings, each with a fail-before/pass-after test | 1,400 lines | 40 min | landed; review still found one flow defect |
| Test-harness rework: parsing, scope policy, schema table, allow-list | 1,500 lines, 29 tests | 37 min | landed unchanged |
| Read-only security review of the same client against the RFCs | — | 25 min | 11 confirmed findings |
| Mechanical split of a 7,000-line file into 16, 41 scripts re-pointed | 7,900 lines moved | ~60 min | complete |
What it gets wrong — and what Claude therefore still reads itself: flow semantics across a
boundary, policy nuance, and anything outside the files it touched. The delegate skill
encodes that loop, so Claude does it without being told.
Install
You need Claude Code, Node 20+, and Ollama. About five minutes.
1. Install the worker runtime and the model
npm i -g @deepseek-ai/dsh # DeepSeek Harness: runs the workers and their sandbox
ollama signin # the :cloud model runs on Ollama's cloud, under your account
ollama pull deepseek-v4.1-flash:cloud
2. Add the plugin in Claude Code
/plugin marketplace add tomw1808/flash-agents
/plugin install flash-agents@flash-agents
Restart Claude Code when it asks you to.
3. Run the setup once
/flash-agents:setup
It runs the doctor (Node, dsh, Ollama, the model, git), writes the two worker profiles into
~/.dsh/profiles (plus a flash-orchestrator preset for dsh's own UI), and proves the pipeline end to end with one real task. Every failing check
prints the exact command that fixes it.
4. Use it
/flash-agents:delegate add retry with exponential backoff to src/api/client.ts, with tests
Or just ask in plain words — "use flash-agents for this", "fan this out". Claude frames the task, dispatches workers, checks every diff, has a read-only worker review the result, fixes in rounds, and applies the patches it accepts.
What you get
flash_task | One coherent task on one worker. Returns its report and a patch. |
flash_batch | Several independent tasks at once; results come back in task order. |
flash_apply | Land a patch from an earlier call (dryRun to check it first). |
/flash-agents:delegate | The everyday loop: frame → slice → dispatch → verify → review → fix → apply. |
/flash-agents:gauntlet | Several competing builders, cheap critics, and a blind A/B judged by Claude. For problems with more than one plausible approach and a result you can run. |
/flash-agents:setup | One-time install check and smoke test. |
Pass mode: "read-only" for reviews and codebase maps: that call runs in a second process whose
sandbox refuses every write.
Safety, in one paragraph
Three layers stand between a cheap model and your machine. The copy: writing calls never run
in your tree. The sandbox: workers are confined to their workspace by DeepSeek Harness, with
no approval prompts — anything outside fails closed. The wall: a deterministic, model-free
filter refuses reads of secrets (.env, ~/.ssh, ~/.aws, …), writes to .git, destructive git
(reset --hard, push --force, …), catastrophic deletions, and any write outside the workspace.
Each refusal comes back to Claude with a code and a reason. Details, and the live test that proves
each rule, are in docs/design.md.
Configuration
The plugin's settings (/plugin → flash-agents) cover the worker model, how many copies may be
in flight (each is a process, so this is a memory decision; default 2), and where patches live.
Any model your Ollama serves works — smaller local models are just weaker at tool calling.
Limits live in flash.config.json. The defaults: a call is stopped after
10 minutes without any activity (stuck), or 3 hours in total (a ceiling for honest work);
either way, the change so far is salvaged as a patch.
To watch workers live, set a log file and tail -f it — see
Observing a run.
Honest limits
- A running worker can't be steered or cancelled — the harness protocol has no attach or cancel. You can watch it; you can't redirect it. The idle timeout is what stops a stuck one.
- Members of one
flash_batchshare one copy, so they see each other's edits. Give them disjoint files. - Gitignored output isn't carried in the patch. It's named in the result instead.
- The dispatcher is a cheap model too. Occasionally it does the work itself instead of
delegating; that call fails as
NOT_DELEGATED, nothing from it is kept, and a retry usually works. - macOS and Linux. Windows is untested.
Manual install (without the plugin)
git clone https://github.com/tomw1808/flash-agents.git && cd flash-agents
node install.mjs # writes the worker profiles into ~/.dsh
node packages/flash-mcp/lib/index.js doctor # every check, with its fix
claude mcp add flash -- node "$PWD/packages/flash-mcp/lib/index.js" --root /path/to/your/project
node install.mjs --uninstall removes everything the installer wrote. The server speaks plain
MCP over stdio, so any MCP client can use it, not only Claude Code.
Development
npm test # 3 suites, no LLM, no network, about 10 seconds
npm run verify # live end-to-end through the official MCP client; needs Ollama
No runtime dependencies. docs/design.md has the full contract, the safety model, every option, what was verified live, and why things are the way they are.
License
MIT © Thomas Wiesner