VS Code Themes for DeepSeek Harness
Browse, search, install, and apply VS Code color themes to the DeepSeek Harness (DSH)
Web UI — one click re-skins the whole interface live, in that theme's own palette.
Category: UI & Experience · License: MIT · Works with: DSH 0.2.1-alpha.1 (web profile)
What it does
- Adds a "VS Code Themes" section to Settings in the Harness Web UI.
- Bundles a curated catalog of 14 popular VS Code themes (One Dark Pro, Dracula,
GitHub Light, Nord, Catppuccin Mocha, Tokyo Gogh Alt, Monokai Classic, Solarized,
Kanagawa, Palenight Italic, Kimbie Dark, …), each with a live color-swatch
preview rendered in that theme's own colors.
- A single search filters local themes (installed + bundled) and simultaneously
queries the official VS Code Marketplace. Marketplace hits appear in their own
section with a live swatch and an Install button.
- One-click install downloads the theme's
.vsix, extracts its color palette, and
maps it onto the DSW design tokens. Installed themes persist across restarts and sort
to the top (most recent first).
- Clicking any card applies the theme immediately — the whole UI re-skins live.
Your selection persists across restarts (browser
localStorage).
- A theme that fails to download, parse, or map (e.g. format incompatibility) shows a
visible error and is otherwise left alone — it never breaks the plugin or the
rest of the UI.
- Every card — surface, preview, pill, ring, and buttons including hover states — is
themed in that theme's own palette, so the gallery reads as a faithful preview no
matter which theme is currently applied.
Screenshots
The panel in a real browser, with marketplace themes installed (30 installed above).
Each card previews its theme live (sample text, semantic chips, accent button); the
applied card carries the Active ring + pill in its own accent colour:
Theme gallery
Install
From a DSH profile (e.g. the default web profile):
dsh plugin --profile web add github:zxbc/dsh-vscode-themes2
Or from a local clone:
dsh plugin install /path/to/dsh-vscode-themes2
The package is named @local/dsh-vscode-themes2 — the trailing 2 is historical
(an early specifier got cached as failed inside a running harness process during
development) and is part of the install name; don't "fix" it when typing commands.
How it works
This is a two-half DSH plugin: the browser is network-restricted, so everything
that talks to the VS Code Marketplace runs in the host half and is exposed to the
browser through a TypertRemoteService named vscodeThemes (self-mounted by the
client via ctx.remote.$mount).
- Browser half (
client.js) — renders the settings section, registers themes with
ctx.theme.register({ id, colorScheme, tokens }), applies the persisted selection on
load, and persists state in localStorage (dsh.vscodeThemes.selected,
dsh.vscodeThemes.installed — JSON array, most recent first).
- Host half (
index.js + marketplace.js) — exposes search(query) and
fetchTheme(ext) on the remote service, delegating to the pure, unit-testable logic
in marketplace.js (no Cordis wiring).
Search queries the official VS Code Marketplace gallery API (themes category only);
install downloads the theme's .vsix from the publisher's gallery.vsassets.io CDN,
parses the ZIP in-process, and reads the theme's JSONC color definitions (which are
stripped of comments/trailing commas before parsing). See PROGRESS.md for the full
protocol facts and edge cases.
Permissions & external services
- Outbound network (host half only):
POST https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/_apis/public/gallery/extensionquery —
theme search, only when you type a query (2+ characters).GET https://{publisher}.gallery.vsassets.io/…vspackage — .vsix download, only
when you explicitly click Install.
- No telemetry, no other network calls. All parsing and token mapping happens
locally in the host process.
- Browser state:
localStorage only (dsh.vscodeThemes.*). Nothing is uploaded.
Compatibility
- DSH 0.2.1-alpha.1, web profile (the client half is injected into the Web UI).
- Host half: Node 18+ (uses
DecompressionStream to unzip .vsix files).
- Known limitation: marketplace themes without a parseable
editor.background / editor.foreground are skipped with a visible error message.
For developers
PROGRESS.md is the project's development log: architecture notes,
marketplace protocol facts, the critical contracts and pitfalls, and the session log.
It is agent-maintained — read it before changing client.js or marketplace.js.
Files
| File | Purpose |
|---|
index.js | Host half: VscodeThemes remote service (search / fetchTheme). |
client.js | Browser half: theme catalog, marketplace search UI, install, persistence, settings UI. |
marketplace.js | Pure host logic: marketplace search, vsix fetch/parse, token mapping. |
cordis.patch.yml | Inserts the vscode-themes2 entry into the profile tree. |
locale/en.json | Display title/description for the Plugin Manager. |
icon.svg | Plugin icon. |
screenshots/ | Gallery screenshot embedded in this README. |
PROGRESS.md | Development log & session notes. |
License
MIT — see the LICENSE file.
