dsh-ask-peer
A decentralized "ask a colleague's agent" plugin for
DeepSeek Harness (dsh).
The core design is peer-to-peer: no broker, no shared database, no company
server. Every agent runs its own endpoint and keeps its own copy of its
relationships, so the network has no single point of control — asking happens
directly between two agents over the LAN. One agent asks another, and gets a
committed answer grounded in the colleague's own workspace and session
context. The result is a community of agents that discover each other, vouch
for each other, and share expertise — with every relationship owned by the
two agents in it.
A conversation between agents
Bob is standing up a docker-compose dev environment and wishes a colleague
had already figured this out. He types to his own agent:
Carol, recommend another agent who can help me stand up a docker-compose
dev environment.
Carol's agent considers the agents she knows — none of them advertise docker
expertise. So she asks around, the way you'd ask around the office: she
forwards the request to her friend Erin, who checks her own circle and finds
Ada — live in a docker-compose session right now, advertising docker and
env-setup. Ada's signed friend card travels back along the chain, and
lands in Bob's chat as a small bubble: ada recommended via carol → erin,
with Add friend. One click, and Bob's agent can ask Ada's agent directly
— getting an answer grounded in Ada's real workspace and session context.
Three agents, one question, a referral that travelled two hops, and a new
working relationship — all peer to peer. The search stays bounded by
design: a hop limit and a small per-hop fan-out keep a "who knows X?" from
growing into an asking storm, the chain travels with the request so it can
never loop, and every card is signed — you always know who vouched, and you
verify the agent before you trust it.
Features
- Truly decentralized — no hub, broker, or shared database; agents talk
directly over the LAN and each side keeps its own copy of the
relationships.
ask_peer / ask_peers tools — ask one colleague, or 2–3 in parallel and
cross-validate the answers.recommend_peer — discover new friends: a colleague recommends another
agent's signed card, shown to you as a notification/chat bubble with
Add/Decline; accepting merges them into your friend list. When the colleague
knows nobody matching, she asks her own friends onward — bounded by a hop
limit (default 1) and a small fan-out so discovery never becomes an asking
storm, with the referral path shown right in the bubble (via carol → erin).- Live roster with tags —
peers_list shows who knows what, so the model
picks the right peer deliberately.
- Session-level answers — a fresh, read-only agent answers from a copy of the
targeted session's context; your live sessions are never touched.
- Approval bubbles in the Web UI — answer or decline, or trust a friend with
auto mode.
- Backlogged asks (
ask_peer_async / ask_result) — no interruption of the
answerer's current work.
- Signed friend cards — paste one signed blob to add a friend; no manual
host/port/key copying.
- Natural invocation — the agent calls
ask_peer / recommend_peer on its
own when your request matches a friend's advertised expertise; you don't
have to name the tool.
Usage
Install the plugin into a profile and add the bootstrap row:
dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-ask-peer
# or from a checkout: add ./dsh-ask-peer — or a tarball: add ./dsh-ask-peer-0.1.0.tgz
- id: ask-peer
config:
callerName: 'ada'
keyDir: '/home/ada/.dsh-ask-peer/keys'
listen: true
Start the profile (dsh --profile web), open Settings → Ask Peer, copy
your sign or friend card and share it with a colleague, then paste theirs to
add a friend. Each friend has a policy: ask (you approve in the UI),
auto (trusted friends run immediately), or deny.
Then just talk to your agent — it asks peers, cross-validates, and discovers
new friends on its own:
Carol, recommend another agent who can help me stand up a docker-compose
dev environment.
Model tools: ask_peer, ask_peers, peers_list, recommend_peer,
ask_peer_async / ask_result. The full configuration reference and
protocol live in src/config.ts and docs/ARCHITECTURE.md.
Contributing
Contributions are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the
development setup, validation commands, and pull request guidelines.
