DeepSeek Harness Desktop

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An Electron-based Windows desktop app that opens the DeepSeek Harness Web GUI (default http://127.0.0.1:3080).

What is DeepSeek Harness (dsh)

DeepSeek Harness (dsh) is an open-source agent harness developed by DeepSeek AI. Repo：https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness

System Requirements (read before installing)

Runtime environment (end users)

The installer is not code-signed (Authenticode); Windows SmartScreen may warn about an "unknown publisher" — choose Run anyway.

Environment variables (optional)

Development / build environment

Features

• Opens the Harness UI in its own window (single instance; launching again just focuses the existing window)
• Auto-start local service: when http://127.0.0.1:3080 is not running, the app starts it with npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web from the bundled Node runtime (no system Node needed); the service started by the app is stopped when the app exits (externally running services are left alone)
• Starting animation: while the service is not ready and no error has occurred, the window shows "Starting…" with an animated dot-matrix rendition of the official whale icon; the error page (with details) only appears on real failures
• Local Server panel in Settings: open Settings in the sidebar and choose "Local Server" to see the Harness address with a status light — green when running, red when stopped/error; supports manual "Start/Stop service" and the "Auto-start service on app launch" toggle
• No menu bar ("File/View/Help" hidden); keyboard shortcuts preserved: Ctrl+R reload, Ctrl+ / Ctrl− / Ctrl+0 zoom, F11 fullscreen, Ctrl+Shift+I DevTools
• Offline error page with automatic retry every 5 seconds
• External links always open in the system browser; the window never leaves the Harness site

App settings are stored in %APPDATA%\DeepSeek Harness\settings.json.

Run (development)

npm install
npm start

To point the app at a Harness instance on a different address:

$env:DSH_URL = "http://127.0.0.1:3080"
npm start

Build the Windows installer

npm run dist

Before dist, scripts/fetch-node.js runs automatically: it downloads a pinned Node.js runtime (v22.23.2 win-x64) from nodejs.org, verifies its SHA-256 checksum, unpacks it into vendor/node, and ships it inside the installer (extraResources → resources/node at the install location). Versions that are already downloaded are skipped (idempotent).

Outputs go to dist/:

• DeepSeek Harness Setup x.x.x.exe — NSIS installer (choose install directory, create desktop shortcut)
• DeepSeek Harness x.x.x.exe — portable edition, no installation required

Package without generating an installer (for quick checks):

npm run pack

Project structure

dsh-desktop/
├── package.json          # dependencies, scripts, electron-builder config
├── scripts/
│   └── fetch-node.js     # downloads & verifies the bundled Node.js runtime (SHA-256), idempotent
├── vendor/
│   └── node/             # bundled Node.js 22 LTS runtime (shipped in the installer; don't edit)
├── src/
│   ├── main.js           # main process: window, service management (auto-start/monitor/stop), IPC
│   ├── preload.js        # preload script (secure contextBridge)
│   ├── overlay.js        # Local Server panel injected into the Settings UI
│   ├── start.html        # starting screen (dot-matrix whale swimming animation)
│   └── error.html        # offline error page when startup fails
└── build/
    ├── icon.png            # app icon (rendered from the official DeepSeek Harness favicon.svg)
    └── icon-render.html    # icon render source (kept for regeneration)

License

MIT — see LICENSE for details.