dsh-routed-subagent

A global DeepSeek Harness plugin that lets any session dispatch a one-shot subagent fully mounted on ANY agent preset, with per-call model/provider override and a model-availability pre-check.

The stock subagent / subagent_fork tools force children to inherit the PARENT's preset. This plugin replaces that with a custom subagent provider whose async child setup calls agentPresets.mount(childCtx, <preset>) — so the child adopts the TARGET preset's complete composition: persona, prompt sections, skill catalog, and tools.

Features

• Background by default, parallel dispatch — the call returns a job id immediately (like the stock subagent tool); the conversation stays free to do other work or dispatch more children in parallel, and aborting the conversation does NOT cancel the child (stop it with job_kill). Set un_in_background: false to wait inline.**
• Full preset mount — the child runs under the target preset's standing composition (not a persona copy): identity, mission section, skills, tools.
• Per-call model override — model / provider arguments route the child's LLM call to a different model than this session's (via the official resolveChildAgentOptions channel).
• Model pre-check — an invalid model fails fast with the provider's candidate list instead of an opaque child failure.
• Official subagent ecosystem — one-shot lifecycle events, UI rows, trajectory; returns the child's final output.
• Idempotent provider registration — multiple presets can mount the row; the host-plane provider registry is never duplicated.

Distribution

GitHub-only. This plugin is not published to npm. Install it by mounting the package directory (see below). peerDependencies are declared with real semver ranges as metadata; they are not used for npm resolution.

Compatibility: targets DeepSeek Harness rc.7 (behavior verified against rc.7 sources) (the async child setup that this plugin relies on is a recent harness behavior).

Install

The plugin is a plain ESM package with a cordis.patch.yml bundle declaration.

1. Link the package into the harness install

The plugin statically imports @deepseek-ai/* packages, which resolve via Node ESM from the package location. Create a node_modules junction/symlink in the package directory pointing at the harness install:

:: Windows
mklink /J "<plugin-dir>\node_modules" "<harness>\resources\host\node_modules"

# POSIX (Linux/macOS)
ln -s "<harness>/resources/host/node_modules" "<plugin-dir>/node_modules"

2. Add the bundle to a profile

Add the package to your profile's dsh.profile.bundles list (e.g. <dshHome>/profiles/web/package.json):

{
  "dependencies": { "dsh-routed-subagent": "link:<plugin-dir>" },
  "dsh": { "profile": { "bundles": ["...", "dsh-routed-subagent"] } }
}

cordis.patch.yml in this repo is the bundle layer that registers the plugin; it is applied automatically when the package is listed in bundles.

Tip: if your deployment provides a hot-assembly helper (e.g. a super-injector-style dev_install_package(dir=...)), you can use it instead of the manual steps above; restarts re-assemble from the bundles list either way.

Usage

subagent_routed(
  prompt="Use the dev engineer standard to review this repository",
  preset="dev",                    # any preset id from the roster
  description="dev review",        # display label
  max_depth=2,                     # recursion budget (default 3; positive integer >= 1)
  run_in_background=true,       # default true: background job, conversation continues
  model="deepseek-v4-flash-free",  # optional: per-call model for the child
  provider="opencode",             # optional: provider for that model
)

Behavior:

How it works

1. A custom subagent provider (routed-mount) re-implements the official one-shot in-process driver (dsh-subagent-in-process-driver's startInProcessRun) with one load-bearing change: the child setup is async and awaits agentPresets.mount(childCtx, targetPreset) instead of composing from the parent.
2. agents.create awaits the setup (verified in dsh-agent-loop), so the async mount runs inside the unpublished creation window; a failure rolls the whole child back.
3. The child's session header records agentPreset: <target> (overriding the parent value), so cold reads rebuild the child under the composition it actually ran.
4. The tool settles the run in two sequential fault-tolerant phases — result first, then dispose — matching the official settleForegroundRun ordering (racing dispose against result would skip the child's turn and return "aborted").

Known limitations

• One-shot, not continuable — the child is a single-turn expert call (great for review / audit / research). Continuable children (send_message) still inherit the parent preset; that is a platform constraint.
• Failure semantics — like the official foreground subagent tool, a child that ends with error / refusal / max-tokens makes the tool call THROW (with any partial output attached); only completed and caller-initiated aborted return as values. Low-level LLM error details live in the child session log.
• Pre-check is conditional — the model pre-check runs only when the harness exposes an llm service AND a provider route exists (explicit provider or the parent's). Without either, it is skipped and the call proceeds.
• Provider availability is environment-specific — the pre-check validates against the runtime model catalog, but a reachable provider with a valid key is still required for the call to succeed.

Development

node --check lib/index.js   # syntax

The plugin is a single ~350-line file with zero build step. CI runs node --check on every push.

License

MIT