dsh-desktop-launcher

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A tiny DeepSeek Harness plugin that installs a desktop double-click launcher for the harness: a dsh.app with the official black-whale icon (macOS) or a dsh.desktop entry (Linux). Double-click it and the web UI starts and your browser opens. Everything is a plugin — this whole thing is just a bundle.

Lightweight: zero dependencies, ~147 KB package (mostly two 1024px icon PNGs; the macOS .icns is generated on the fly with the built-in sips + iconutil). It only touches the desktop side — no terminal command, no bundled scripts in your PATH. The terminal launcher lives in the separate dsh-launcher package, so you install exactly what you want.

What it does

Loaded as a bundle, the plugin's apply runs on every harness boot and converges these artifacts (idempotent: a fast no-op when the config is unchanged):

Install

Prerequisites: the dsh CLI and pnpm ≥ 9 (the harness pins pnpm 11 — corepack enable if yours is older).

From npm:

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-desktop-launcher

From GitHub — plain JS, no build step, so nothing to allowlist:

dsh plugin --profile web add github:LvienOeria/dsh-desktop-launcher

Local path installs work too (zero dependencies):

dsh plugin --profile web add ./dsh-desktop-launcher

Then start dsh once — the plugin generates the launcher:

dsh --profile web      # installed CLI
# or
pnpm dsh web           # source checkout (auto-detected)

Done. Double-click dsh on your Desktop; closing the terminal window it opens stops the harness.

Customize

Edit your profile's patch layer (~/.dsh/profiles/<profile>/cordis.patch.yml) — later layers win, and a patch replaces a row's whole config:

- id: dsh-desktop-launcher
  config:
    launcherName: dsh                      # desktop app / entry name
    iconStyle: whale-dark                  # whale | whale-dark
    iconFile: ''                           # absolute path to your own .icns/.png
    url: http://127.0.0.1:3080             # web UI URL to poll and open
    sourceDir: /path/to/deepseek-harness   # run `pnpm dsh web` from a checkout
    startCommand: ''                       # fully custom start command (single line)
    autoOpenBrowser: true

Custom icons

Drop any .icns (macOS) or .png (Linux) anywhere and point iconFile at it; a .png on macOS is converted to .icns automatically. The built-in whale / whale-dark styles are the official mark on light/dark cards; regenerate them from the harness favicon with python3 scripts/build-icons.py /path/to/deepseek-harness/apps/web/public/favicon.svg (needs Pillow + macOS sips).

How the start command is resolved

1. startCommand (explicit)
2. sourceDir → cd <dir> && pnpm dsh web
3. cwd is a source checkout whose package.json has a dsh script
4. an installed dsh CLI on PATH (recursion guard: never our own wrapper)
5. fallback dsh --profile web (with a warning)

How it stays safe

• Every generated file carries a # managed by dsh-desktop-launcher vX marker. An existing file or app bundle without the marker is backed up to <path>.bak before replacement (never silently clobbered).
• Unchanged config → nothing is rewritten (state hash in ~/.dsh-launcher-desktop/state.json).
• Bad config (unknown iconStyle, missing iconFile, non-http(s) url, multi-line startCommand) fails loudly with a clear message.
• Install failures are logged prominently but never take the harness down — dsh still boots.

Uninstall

dsh plugin --profile web remove dsh-desktop-launcher
rm -rf ~/.dsh-launcher-desktop ~/Desktop/dsh.app
# plus, on Linux: ~/.local/share/applications/dsh.desktop

Notes

• macOS: the first launch may ask you to confirm opening the generated app — that is Gatekeeper, click Open.
• The whale mark is from deepseek-harness (apps/web/public/favicon.svg); it is used here solely for the launcher icon.
• Want a terminal command instead of / in addition to the desktop app? Install dsh-launcher.
• Windows is not supported (nothing is installed; a warning is logged).

License

MIT — see LICENSE.