DSH Side Chat: Ask aside. Stay on track.
dsh-side-chat
A read-only side chat plugin for DeepSeek Harness (DSH) — inherit completed context, ask temporary questions, and keep the parent agent running.
English · 简体中文
Ask aside. Stay on track. Open a focused drawer that inherits the completed parent context, ask a temporary question, then close it without writing the exchange back into the main conversation.
Quick install
dsh plugin --profile web add @lukeknow0/dsh-side-chat
Restart the running dsh web process after installation, then refresh the existing Harness page.
Side Chat installed in DeepSeek Harness
If Side Chat helps you stay focused, consider giving the project a ⭐ — it helps more DSH users find it.
Why Side Chat?
Long coding conversations accumulate decisions, plans, and in-flight work. A small clarification can pull the main agent away from that trajectory. Side Chat gives the clarification its own child runtime while keeping the parent visible and independent.
- Adaptive presentation: Better Sidebar integration is automatic when its native tab capabilities are available, but it is optional. Without Better Sidebar, Side Chat uses the collision-aware overlay drawer.
- Collision-aware drawer fallback: measures the rendered AppFrame, native sidebar/details, sibling overlays, and marked portal controls without replacing a native slot; it chooses a full rail, compact rail, or bottom sheet.
- Context inheritance: forks only through the latest completed
turn/end, never through a half-finished turn.
- Parent independence: the main conversation keeps running and receives no report or follow-up from the child.
- Read-only by construction: sandbox mode, approval policy, model-visible allowlist, and an execution-time deny-by-default guard.
- Non-destructive hiding: minimize, Escape, native tab close, and the visibility shortcut preserve the transcript and draft; returning restores the live child.
- Explicit lifecycle: internal End asks for confirmation. A confirmed End removes resumability immediately; otherwise, the Host starts its 30-minute parked lease only when both parent and child are idle.
- Live transcript: the Host projects only child-local messages while the drawer uses an adaptive 220–700 ms refresh loop.
- English and Chinese UI: follows the active Harness locale.
- Keyboard friendly: press
Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + . to open or close.
Install
From npm
dsh plugin --profile web add @lukeknow0/dsh-side-chat
From GitHub
dsh plugin --profile web add github:Lukeknow0/dsh-side-chat
Restart the running dsh web process after installation, then refresh the existing Harness page.
From a local checkout
git clone https://github.com/Lukeknow0/dsh-side-chat.git
cd dsh-side-chat
pnpm install
pnpm run check
dsh plugin --profile web add .
When dsh is being run directly from a DeepSeek Harness source checkout, use its package script:
pnpm dsh plugin --profile web add /absolute/path/to/dsh-side-chat
Use
- Finish at least one turn in a normal parent conversation.
- Select Side Chat in the conversation header, or press
Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + ..
- Ask a focused side question. The composer is available immediately while completed parent context is prepared silently in the background; sending at once is accepted immediately, though the first response may take slightly longer. The drawer can inspect inherited context and read-only resources, and adapts without remounting when panels or the viewport change.
- Switch tasks freely: the drawer is parked by parent and reappears with its transcript when you return.
- Use Minimize, Escape, the native tab close, the header action, or
Cmd/Ctrl + Shift + . to hide Side Chat without losing its transcript or draft. To end it, choose the internal End control and confirm.
A parent can own one retained Side Chat at a time. The parked countdown starts only after both parent and child are idle. If either becomes active during that countdown, the next transition to both idle starts a fresh 30 minutes. Hiding preserves resumability; a confirmed internal End removes it immediately. Reloading the page can reattach to a retained Host conversation while its lease remains valid.
Safety model
Side Chat applies four monotonic controls to its child agent:
| Layer | Behavior |
|---|
| Fork boundary | Copies only the balanced event prefix through the latest completed turn |
| Policy override | Appends sandboxMode: read-only and approvalPolicy: never after the inherited seed |
| Tool visibility | Exposes only read-oriented tools that are actually available in the parent composition |
| Execution guard | Denies every unknown or non-read-only tool, including nested Code Mode dispatch |
The tool guard is the final authority. Adding a new tool to Harness does not silently grant it to Side Chat.
Important cleanup disclosure
Temporary does not mean guaranteed physical erasure on DSH 0.1.0-rc.7. Durable physical erasure remains limited to public DSH cleanup support; that release exposes no public API for deleting a durable session log. On confirmed internal End or idle expiry, this plugin:
- removes client admission and ignores late callbacks;
- aborts a pending start or cancels active work;
- disposes the live
AgentHandle, removing the child from the active runtime;
- calls the public workspace archive API when available.
The archived session log may remain on disk. This project does not unlink private persistence files or depend on unstable internal storage paths. See SECURITY.md.
How it works
sequenceDiagram
participant U as User
participant D as Side drawer
participant H as SideChatService
participant P as Parent agent
participant C as Child agent
U->>D: Open Side Chat
D->>H: start(parentId, chatToken)
H->>P: read completed-turn prefix
H->>C: create hidden read-only child
H-->>D: childId and seedLength
loop while drawer is open
D->>H: read(chatToken)
H-->>D: child-only transcript snapshot
end
U->>D: side question
D->>H: send(chatToken, question)
H->>C: Agent.followup(message)
Note over P,C: Parent and child run independently
U->>D: Switch parent task
D->>D: Park drawer state by parent
Note over D,H: Countdown starts only when parent and child are idle; activity resets it to 30 min
U->>D: Return to parent and restore transcript
U->>D: Confirm internal End
D->>H: close(chatToken)
H->>C: abort, cancel, dispose, archive
The child is tagged with origin: subagent but intentionally has no durable parentSession catalog link. It appears in neither the workspace tree nor the parent's subagent catalog; the Host retains sole prompt authority while the drawer owns its opaque token.
Compatibility
| Component | Support |
|---|
| DeepSeek Harness | >=0.1.0-rc.7 <0.2.0 |
| Node.js | `^22.19.0 |
| Browser | Current Chromium/Safari/Firefox supported by DSH Web |
| Package manager | pnpm 11.7 for development |
The development dependency graph uses the coherent rc.8 package set while public peer ranges include rc.7. The plugin is also installed and boot-tested against the local DSH 0.1.0-rc.7 checkout. Published rc.7 packages currently resolve several caret peers to rc.8, so pinning every standalone development dependency to rc.7 creates duplicate type universes and is not a faithful application install.
Development
pnpm install
pnpm run typecheck
pnpm run test
pnpm run build
pnpm run smoke
pnpm run check
pnpm run check runs linting, three strict TypeScript projects, unit tests, host and browser builds, runtime smoke assertions, and publint.
Project layout
src/
host/ host-owned child lifecycle
shared/ Zod contracts and tool policy
client/ drawer, controller, locale, remote face
remote-descriptors.ts typed Typert RPC descriptors
tests/ boundary, policy, contract, package tests
docs/assets/ campaign and installed-state visuals
Design system
The visual identity uses two parallel rails, with one rail briefly branching away. It represents a question that diverges without changing the main trajectory.
- Near black:
#0B0D0E
- Warm off-white:
#F2F0E8
- Acid mint:
#B7E85B
- Muted coral:
#E9705B
The drawer itself uses official DSH tokens and primitives, so it follows the active theme while retaining the mint branch accent. The complete identity board is in docs/assets/brand-board.png.
Status
This is an MVP and the public API surface may evolve before 1.0. The intended invariants are stable: safe completed-turn fork, no writes, no parent mutation, one retained Side Chat per parent, non-destructive hiding and restoration, confirmed internal End, and cleanup on idle expiry.
License and attribution
MIT. See LICENSE and THIRD_PARTY_NOTICES.md.
Architecture research was informed by the MIT-licensed dsh-nested-followups project and by official DeepSeek Harness source. No source file is vendored wholesale.
DeepSeek Harness and Codex are trademarks of their respective owners. This project is not affiliated with DeepSeek or OpenAI.
