dsh-restart-client
A DSH (DeepSeek Harness) plugin that adds a one-click restart for the desktop client — a sidebar button, an HTTP endpoint, and an agent tool, all backed by the same host capability.
Click once. No confirmation dialog, no second press, no console window.
The restart button at the foot of the sidebar
Why
The DSH desktop app ships restart only as an official service-only extension: it respawns the Harness process and leaves the window running, so host-side changes still need a manual quit-and-relaunch. This plugin restarts the whole application while keeping the experience to a single click.
What it does
| Entry point | Kind | Purpose |
|---|
| Sidebar footer button | Client slot sidebar.footer.action | One click → the desktop app restarts |
POST /api/dsh-restart/restart | HTTP route | Same operation for scripts and other plugins |
GET /api/dsh-restart/status | HTTP route | Reports the resolved desktop process and mode plan |
restart_dsh_client | Agent tool | Lets the model restart the client itself |
Two modes:
client (default) — kill the whole desktop process tree, wait for it to disappear, then relaunch the executable. The window really restarts.service — respawn only the Harness service process and exit, leaving the desktop alone.
Install
The plugin is a regular DSH bundle. Point a profile at it:
// <profile>/package.json
{
"dependencies": {
"dsh-restart-client": "link:E:/path/to/dsh-restart-client"
},
"dsh": {
"bundles": ["dsh-restart-client"]
}
}
Then restart the client once (by hand the first time — the button does not exist yet), and refresh the page after any client.js edit, since the desktop serves client halves from disk.
Because package.json points exports at the real files and the profile links the directory, editing client.js is picked up on the next page load; editing index.js (the host half) needs a real client restart.
How the no-console restart works
The interesting part, and the reason this plugin exists rather than a five-line shell wrapper.
A helper process has to outlive the app it is about to kill, so it is created through WMI (Win32_Process.Create), which reparents it to WmiPrvSE and lets it survive taskkill /T on the desktop tree. But WMI-created processes always get a console window, and none of the usual tricks suppress it — -WindowStyle Hidden does not, and a Win32_ProcessStartup with ShowWindow = 0 returns success while the console still appears (measured on Windows 10/11).
So the helper is launched indirectly:
- Write a tiny
.vbs launcher (UTF-16LE with BOM — WSH accepts only ANSI or UTF-16, and temp paths may contain non-ASCII user names).
- The launcher runs
shell.Run "<helper command>", 0, False — window style 0 means no window at all.
- WMI creates
wscript.exe //nologo <launcher.vbs>, which starts the helper invisibly.
If WSH is unavailable, the plugin falls back to creating the helper directly, so restarting still works even if a console flashes. A dry run reports which route would be taken:
// POST /api/dsh-restart/restart {"dryRun": true}
{ "launch": "wscript (windowless)", ... }
The button
It lives in the shell's own sidebar.footer.action list slot, next to Settings, and inherits the sidebar's layout — including the centering it does when the sidebar collapses to a rail. Nothing is measured at runtime and no coordinates are hard-coded.
Styled as a ghost button in the shell's token language: 28px tall, 6px radius, transparent until hover, --dsw-alias-label-secondary → --dsw-alias-label-primary, a 180° icon turn on hover, a spin plus a pulsing label while busy, and --dsw-alias-state-error-primary with a Retry face for six seconds if the request fails. It honors prefers-reduced-motion.
API
GET /api/dsh-restart/status
{
"ok": true,
"host": { "platform": "win32", "selfPid": 26488, "desktopPid": 12724, "desktopOwned": true, "modes": ["client", "service"] }
}
POST /api/dsh-restart/restart
{ "mode": "client", "delayMs": 1500, "dryRun": false }
delayMs is clamped to 120000 and defaults to 1500, giving the HTTP response time to reach the browser before the app dies.
Response:
{
"ok": true,
"mode": "client",
"desktopPid": 12724,
"helperPid": 26576,
"launch": "wscript (windowless)",
"logPath": "C:/Users/…/dsh-restart-client/client-2026-10-19T13-21-28-091Z.log"
}
Both routes reject untrusted origins (403) through ctx.connection.requestRejection, and reject the wrong method (405).
Agent tool restart_dsh_client
{ "mode": "client", "dryRun": true }
The current turn is interrupted by a real restart.
Layout
index.js host half — routes, WMI/VBS launcher, agent tool
client.js client half — the sidebar button
cordis.patch.yml bundle patch: inserts the plugin entry
locale/zh.json plugin marketplace metadata (Chinese)
locale/en.json plugin marketplace metadata (English)
icon.svg plugin icon
index.js imports nothing but Node built-ins.
Limitations
- Windows-centric. The windowless launcher path is WSH-specific; other platforms fall back to the direct route.
- Single instance. The relaunch waits up to 20s for the old pid to disappear, because the app hands a second launch to the dying instance; if the pid outlives that, it relaunches anyway and logs it.
- A restart interrupts the turn. Any tool call in flight is killed with the process.
License
MIT — see LICENSE.
