dsh-weixin-reader
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A WeChat Official Account article reader for DeepSeek Harness. It fetches a mp.weixin.qq.com article and parses the body into clean Markdown for the model.
Why
Harness's built-in web_fetch often fails on WeChat articles: the site returns an environment-check page, the body is buried under heavy inline styles and nested containers, and images load lazily through data-src. This plugin handles those cases and exposes a single narrow tool.
What it provides
One model-facing tool, weixin_read:
| Parameter | Type | Required | Description |
|---|
url | string | yes | Article link, e.g. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/xxxxxxxx |
maxChars | integer | no | Maximum body characters before truncation; falls back to the plugin config |
saveToFile | boolean | no | Write the full body to a workspace file; falls back to the plugin config |
The canonical result carries title, author, publishedAt, sourceUrl, wordCount, imageCount, markdown, truncated, savedTo, and bodyChars. What the model sees is rendered Markdown: the title, a metadata line, then the body.
The plugin also registers a system-prompt section telling the model to prefer weixin_read over web_fetch for WeChat articles.
Install
dsh plugin --profile web add github:jack1545/dsh-weixin-reader
Running from a source checkout, use pnpm dsh instead of dsh. Restart the Harness process to load the new layer.
Verify the layer without starting:
dsh --profile web --dump-config # should contain a "# == dsh-weixin-reader" layer
Uninstall:
dsh plugin --profile web remove dsh-weixin-reader
Configuration
Every tunable lives in the config block of cordis.patch.yml, and can be overridden by id in a profile's own cordis.patch.yml:
| Key | Default | Description |
|---|
timeoutMs | 30000 | Fetch timeout in milliseconds |
maxChars | 60000 | Body character limit; longer bodies are truncated and flagged |
saveToFile | false | Whether to save the full body by default |
saveDir | "" | Save directory; empty writes to <workspace>/weixin-articles/ |
systemPromptOrder | 10120 | Prompt-section order; later sits closer to generation |
userAgent | "" | Overrides the default desktop browser UA |
Two design decisions
No subprocess for fetching. The Harness file sandbox blocks Node from reading a child process's pipes; execFileSync and piped spawn both fail with EPERM, so external fetchers such as url-md.exe cannot be used from inside a plugin. This plugin uses the host fetch instead, which inherits the process's existing proxy settings and is unaffected by that limit. Redirecting a child's stdout to a file descriptor rather than a pipe would work around it, but that adds temporary files and cleanup responsibility for no benefit here.
Zero external imports. A profile's node_modules does not provide @deepseek-ai/* runtime dependencies, so the plugin uses only Node built-ins and ctx, and does not use defineTool. The cost is manual argument validation, which is implemented and whose failure messages match the declared schema.
Limitations
mp.weixin.qq.com only. Other hosts are rejected, so it cannot be repurposed as a general fetcher.- Fails loudly rather than degrading. An environment-check page, a deleted or restricted article, and an unrecognizable page structure each raise an explicit error instead of silently retrying or returning an empty body.
- The body is a parse result, not raw HTML. Rich layouts (custom cards, interactive components) degrade to text or image links; images stay as Markdown image syntax and are not downloaded.
- No bulk fetching. Keep the request rate low and respect WeChat's platform terms; this plugin is for personal reading and research.
Layout
dsh-weixin-reader/
├── package.json # declares dsh.bundle
├── cordis.patch.yml # the layer applied on install
├── index.js # plugin entry: registers weixin_read and the prompt section
└── lib/parser.js # zero-dependency parser, testable outside Harness
lib/parser.js works standalone:
import { fetchArticle, formatArticle } from './lib/parser.js';
const article = await fetchArticle('https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/xxxxxxxx');
console.log(article.title, article.author, article.wordCount);
console.log(formatArticle(article));
Verification
Measured locally on 2026-09-21:
weixin_read fetched and parsed a real article: title, author, and publication time correct; 5049 characters and 16 images; clean Markdown structure.- Argument validation rejects, as intended: a missing
url, a non-object argument, an empty string, a non-positive-integer maxChars, and an undeclared extra key.
- A non-
mp.weixin.qq.com host is rejected.
maxChars truncation applies and is flagged; saveToFile writes the correct path and full Markdown content.- The canonical result matches
output.schema exactly: all required keys present, no undeclared keys.
License
MIT. This plugin is not affiliated with Tencent or WeChat, and is intended for personal reading and research.
