deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness

What it does

DeepSeek's officially open-sourced agent runtime framework (harness). You can think of it as the shell around an AI assistant: the model itself does the thinking, and the harness gives it tools, memory, an interface, and permissions. Its design principle is "everything is a plugin" — even the interface can be swapped out.

Features

• Runs with a single command: after installing Node.js, execute `npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web`, which opens the web interface at http://127.0.0.1:3080 by default; add `--no-open` to skip launching the browser automatically
• Built on the Cordis plugin framework; the interface, tools, and model integrations can all be split out into replaceable plugins, and the community already has thousands of them
• The official project provides a documentation site and a Chinese README; most ecosystem plugins are developed around it
• Officially labeled a developer preview, with a warning in capitals: breaking compatibility changes will happen

Good fit for

• You want to build your own AI workbench rather than use someone else's finished product
• You need to connect AI to local files, the terminal, and Git — development environments
• You want to expand capability gradually by installing plugins rather than committing to one fixed package

Advice

• For a first run, just execute `npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web`; do not start by wrestling with config files and plugins
• Before running it, read SAFETY.md in the repository root; it explains which parts of your computer the agent can operate on
• Write down the version number. During the preview period, upgrades often break plugin compatibility; when something goes wrong, roll back the version first instead of debugging plugins one by one
• Install plugins one at a time and confirm the interface is normal after each one, so you can pinpoint the cause immediately if something breaks

Cautions

• This is a developer preview; the project itself says there will be compatibility-breaking updates, so do not use it in a production environment that cannot tolerate interruption
• Installing a plugin means handing it permissions; before installing, read its permission declarations (see the "permissions it declares" section on this page)
• By default it only listens on local 127.0.0.1; if you want other devices to access it, you must handle network exposure and authentication yourself