dsh-working-activity
A live "working line" for DeepSeek Harness: the model's real-time activity — playful thinking copy, the tool actually running, elapsed time, and a turn-end summary — shown while the agent works.
What it does
Folds the durable session stream (turn/start, assistant/chunk, tool/call, tool/result, turn/end) plus agent/status into one status line, refreshed on a render tick:
- Thinking: short colloquial copy rotates every few seconds (
嗯…让我捋捋, 盘一下盘一下, 大脑转起来了, deadpan lol / hm / ok), tiered when thinking runs long (30s / 1min / 5min), night-owl copy mixed in between 00:00–06:00 local time.
- Tool activity: the running tool renders as
俏皮动词 + 参数细节 + 已耗时 (跑个命令 npm test · 12s); failed tools show 翻车了-style copy in the done line.
- Turn summary: on
turn/end the line becomes 搞定 ✓ · N 工具 · 想Xs 干Ys (thinking/tool split), with the last tool's fragment pinned for a few seconds.
- Minimal mode:
phrases: false renders plain functional labels (思考中 · 总1m23s, bash npm test · 12s).
Two optional sinks, both off by default only when their seam is absent:
- TUI prompt slot — registers the
${activity} template value on ctx.tuiPrompt when the TUI is composed. Add ${activity} to theme.leftPrompt to see it next to cwd/model/context.
- Session events — appends log-only
activity/status events (never surface events: the model never sees them) for Web and other UI consumers; replay ignores them.
Installation
The package is a self-mounting bundle: it declares dsh.bundle.patch
(cordis.patch.yml), so the official CLI both installs it and appends it to
the profile's bundle layer stack:
dsh plugin --profile <profile> add dsh-working-activity
At boot, app-boot applies the bundle's patch list over the profile root and
the package inserts its own working-activity row — no manual configuration
required. To tune a value, override the row's config by id in the profile's
user layer ($DSH_HOME/profiles/<profile>/cordis.patch.yml) instead of
inserting a second same-id row:
- id: working-activity
config:
publishIntervalMs: 500
Host and TUI integration supports the DSH 0.1.0-rc.6 and 0.1.1-rc lines,
plus 0.1.2-alpha.2. The optional Web client still uses the rc client-runtime
contract and is not covered by alpha.2 compatibility.
TUI usage
Install the plugin into a profile that composes the official dsh-tui, then
add the ${activity} slot to the left prompt template in the profile's user
layer ($DSH_HOME/profiles/<profile>/cordis.patch.yml):
- id: tui
config:
theme:
leftPrompt: '${cwd}${git/worktree}${activity}${model}${token_meter/cache_hit_rate}${context}'
While a turn runs, the prompt line shows e.g. dsh main 跑个命令 npm test · 12s deepseek-chat …; while thinking, 嗯…让我捋捋 · 总1m23s; after the turn, 搞定 ✓ · 4 工具 · 想12s 干11s briefly. Without ${activity} in the template, the plugin is inert in the TUI (the slot is unregistered values are omitted by the template renderer).
Web usage
The Web client renders the live line two ways, both fed by the activity/status events:
- The turn-level status label (
TurnStatus, formerly the static "Deep diving...") shows the live line while a turn runs, keeping its sweep animation.
- A working-line dock entry (
WorkingLine on conversation.input.dock) renders the turn-end statistics (token/elapsed/tool summary) above the composer after a turn settles; live phases stay on the turn label.
Both fall back to the previous static label while the plugin is absent, so the Web UI is unaffected by disabling it.
Configuration
| Key | Type | Default | Meaning |
|---|
phrases | boolean | true | Playful copy pool; false renders plain functional labels |
publish | boolean | false | Append activity/status session events for UI consumers. Off by default: appended events currently make session logs unresumable (see note below) |
tickMs | number | 500 | Status render tick interval (100–5000) |
publishIntervalMs | number | 2000 | Minimum interval between published events while the line is stable (500–30000) |
detailLimit | number | 40 | Max displayed detail length (paths/commands/patterns), 8–120 |
customActions | object | {} | Exact tool-name → action-copy pools, e.g. {"my_deploy": ["部署一下", "上线中"]} |
narrate | boolean | true | Inject the ⏵ self-narration contract into the system prompt; the line is surfaced live and stripped from the chat body |
Event contract
activity/status is a log-only session event (merge-extensible SessionEventMap member, no surfaceOp):
{
phase: 'idle' | 'waiting' | 'thinking' | 'tool' | 'done'
line: string // plain-text status line, no ANSI
label?: string // current work label (tool action / stage)
detail?: string // path / command / pattern fragment
phrase?: string // current playful phrase
toolCount: number // tools completed this turn
turnElapsedMs: number // ms since turn start
phaseStartedAt: number // epoch ms the phase started (animation anchor)
}
Why publish is off by default: session.append() cannot mark events ignorable, and the resume read path refuses any log containing unknown non-ignorable event types — so with publish: true, every session that rendered a status line fails to resume. Re-enable only for a log-replaying consumer on a harness that supports ignorable appends. The live TUI prompt line is unaffected.
Publishing rules: line changes publish immediately; a stable line republishes at most every publishIntervalMs so a long tool's elapsed time stays live without flooding the log. All data is lossless JSON; optional fields are omitted when absent.
Export shape
A function/namespace plugin: name / Config / apply, no default export. The state machine (ActivityTracker) and copy pools live in ./status and ./phrases (pure, clock-injected, unit-tested). The invariant companion registers under ./invariant.
Model Experience
Prompt and tool surface
Nothing. The plugin injects no prompt sections, registers no tools, and appends no surface events. activity/status is UI state only: it never enters derived model history, so the model cannot see its own working line.
Token effect
Zero per request.
KV Cache effect
No system-prompt contribution, so no cache-stability effect.
Known Limitations and Deferred Work
- Single active line: the plugin keeps one status line per session; the TUI slot shows the most recently active session.
- Narration is opt-in: the
⏵ self-narration contract (model writes a short status line at the top of each reply) is injected by default (narrate: true); set narrate: false for a purely event-derived line.
- No progress percentages: DSH has no tool progress events; a long tool shows elapsed time only.
- No animated frames: the TUI slot renders a static text fragment; frame animation (moon/comet/braille presets) is deferred until the prompt-slot contract supports a frame callback.
- Web dock entry duplicates the turn label: the input-dock
WorkingLine and the chat TurnStatus show the same snapshot; the dock entry exists for session views where the turn label is not visible.
