dsh-webview-wrapper

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A naive native desktop shell for the DeepSeek Harness Web surface. dsh-webview-wrapper is an out-of-tree deepseek-harness plugin that hosts the already-running Web app in an OS-native window through WebviewJS — the platform's own webview engine (WebView2 on Windows, WebKit on macOS, WebKitGTK on Linux), never a bundled browser. No Electron, no fork, no patch to the harness.

In keeping with the everything-is-a-plugin philosophy, the integration is pure composition. The package installs into a profile like any out-of-tree plugin, its bundle patch layer inserts one plugin row, and the plugin mounts itself once the Web composition provides the webServer / webRuntime services. The harness itself stays a stock installation.

Features

• Native window + system tray for the exact surface dsh web serves.
• Close-to-tray: closing the window hides it and the harness keeps running (an invisible 1×1 keep-alive window holds the process alive).
• Tray menu (Show / Quit) and tray double-click.
• Clean teardown: unloading the plugin — or shutting the profile down — exits the native app through the effect disposer.
• Invariant companion (dsh-webview-wrapper/invariant) registered with the InvariantRegistry.

Installation

Prerequisites:

• A stock deepseek-harness installation whose profile mounts the Web bundle (dsh web). The wrapper injects webServer and webRuntime, so the target profile must be Web-based — the shipped web profile is the natural target.
• The WebviewJS platform requirements: Windows → WebView2 (ships with Windows 11 and current Edge), macOS → built-in WebKit (10.15+), Linux → WebKitGTK 4.1 and libxdo.
• pnpm (the plugin manager forwards its arguments to pnpm).

Quick start

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-webview-wrapper
dsh --profile web

Custom profile

The shipped web profile already lists the Web layers (@deepseek-ai/dsh-base, @deepseek-ai/dsh-web-app) in its dsh.profile.bundles. To use a custom profile, copy it and add only the wrapper:

cp -r ~/.dsh/profiles/web ~/.dsh/profiles/ww
dsh plugin --profile ww add dsh-webview-wrapper
dsh --profile ww

What add does, step by step

1. dsh plugin initializes the profile on first use, then runs pnpm add in the profile directory.
2. Because dsh-webview-wrapper declares dsh.bundle.patch in its manifest, the plugin manager automatically appends it to the profile's dsh.profile.bundles layer stack.
3. On the next boot, the bundle's patch layer (cordis.patch.yml) inserts the webview plugin row into the composition.
4. The plugin waits for webServer / webRuntime, then owns the native window lifecycle.

One rule: don't add the in-box bundles

dsh plugin add is only for out-of-tree plugins. The Web bundles (@deepseek-ai/dsh-base, @deepseek-ai/dsh-web-app) are in-box: they load from the harness installation and belong in dsh.profile.bundles — never in the profile's dependencies. adding an in-box bundle makes pnpm materialize the whole harness tree inside the profile's node_modules:

• pnpm installs it with autoInstallPeers: false, so the tree is missing its peers (e.g. @deepseek-ai/cordis); pnpm peers check inside the profile reports them.
• At boot the loader resolves plugins from the profile directory, so those copies shadow the installation (the $DSH_HOME/profiles/node_modules junctions) and fail to load — tool calls error.
• A first symptom along the way: @deepseek-ai/dsh-web-app pulls in the harness's native directory picker, whose koffi dependency has an unapproved build script; pnpm 11 (default strict-dep-builds: true) exits non-zero (ERR_PNPM_IGNORED_BUILDS), dsh plugin skips the dsh.profile.bundles reconcile, and the profile boots without the Web layers.

To get out of that state, drop the in-box bundle from dependencies (keep it in dsh.profile.bundles — it resolves from the installation), run pnpm install in the profile directory to prune the harness tree, and boot again.

Running a local checkout

Build the checkout first, then install from the folder:

pnpm run build
dsh plugin --profile web add file:/absolute/path/to/dsh-webview-wrapper

Usage

• First boot starts in the tray — no main window is created until you ask for it. Double-click the tray icon or choose Show to open the 1024×768 window hosting http://127.0.0.1:<port> (the live Web surface).
• Closing the window hides it to the tray; the harness keeps running.
• Quit in the tray menu exits the application.

How it works

File	Role
src/index.ts	The plugin: creates the WebviewJS Application, the tray, and the main window; routes custom-menu-click, window-close-requested, and application-close-requested; calls app.exit() on disposal.
cordis.patch.yml	The bundle patch layer: inserts { id: webview, name: 'dsh-webview-wrapper' } into the composition.
src/invariant.ts	The invariant companion, registering the package with the InvariantRegistry.
assets/icon.svg	Taskbar / tray icon source, rasterized with sharp.

Lifecycle sketch:

apply(ctx)
├─ readIcon(icon.svg, 16)          # one shared async rasterization
└─ ctx.effect(() =>                 # plugin lifetime == native app lifetime
   ├─ new Application()
   ├─ whenReady() → 1×1 keep-alive window + tray (Show/Quit)
   ├─ tray double-click / Show → createOrShowMainWindow()
   │    └─ BrowserWindow(1024×768) + webview → http://127.0.0.1:<ctx.webServer.port>
   ├─ window-close-requested → hide (close-to-tray)
   └─ disposer → app.exit()

Known limitations and roadmap

The wrapper is deliberately naive; the rough edges below are the roadmap:

1. No native notifications — nothing in the harness surfaces as an OS notification. Roadmap: WebviewJS Notification.
2. Generic HTTP transport — the webview loads the Web app over http://127.0.0.1:<port>, the same browser HTTP carrier any tab uses. Roadmap: replace it with WebviewJS IPC (webview.expose() / window.ipc.postMessage) and/or a custom protocol, dropping the loopback-HTTP dependency.
3. No menu bar — only the tray menu exists. Roadmap: app.setMenu() with File/Edit roles and accelerators.
4. Console window + tray-only exit — launching through the CLI shows the host console window, and the only exit paths are the tray Quit and profile shutdown. Roadmap: package as a GUI-subsystem executable (the WebviewJS CLI / Node SEA) so no console appears, and add an in-page quit affordance.

Other current rough edges: default fixed 1024×768 window with a hardcoded title (no config surface yet), and the main window is not opened at startup (the app starts in the tray).

Development

git clone https://github.com/no1xsyzy/dsh-webview-wrapper.git
cd dsh-webview-wrapper
pnpm install
pnpm run build      # re-run after every change
dsh plugin --profile web add file:/absolute/path/to/dsh-webview-wrapper

For a private dev profile, copy web first as in Custom profile — add only out-of-tree plugins, never the in-box @deepseek-ai/dsh-web-app.

Notes:

• The workspace never runs the app. pnpm-workspace.yaml blocks the WebviewJS native addon builds (koffi, libwebview-nodejs) on purpose; the wrapper is composed into a profile to run, not executed from the checkout. Use the dsh plugin ... add file:<path> flow to test.
• lib/ and node_modules are gitignored; lib/ is build output.
• Name discipline (npm publication). The npm package name must stay identical across package.json name, the plugin name in src/index.ts, the bundle row in cordis.patch.yml, and the invariant registration in src/invariant.ts. The plugin manager resolves bundles and the InvariantRegistry keys registrations by npm name, so renaming means updating all four places.
• Keep README.md and README.zh.md in sync.