If you are new to DeepSeek Harness (DSH), this is the shortest path from "I heard about DSH" to "I installed a plugin". One command installs, one restart activates, and everything else is knowing where to look and what to check first.

Step 0 — install DSH itself

DSH is a coding agent harness that runs on your machine. The quickest way to get it:

npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web

or, on macOS, through Homebrew:

brew install dsh

The first launch walks you through setting up a model provider. Once the web UI is up on http://127.0.0.1:3080, you have a working harness.

Step 1 — find a plugin you trust

Plugins are published as GitHub repositories or npm packages. This directory exists so you do not have to scroll GitHub blindly:

  • Explore — the full index: filter by category, language, license, stars or the plugin type tag (plugin / desktop app / collection).
  • Editor's picks — a small list of projects a human actually reviewed, each with a written reason. Stars measure hype, not quality.
  • Plugin pages — every entry links to the source repository, shows the license, the last activity and the exact install command.

A few things worth checking on any plugin page before installing: the license, whether it is archived, how recently it was updated, and what the repository's own README says about permissions.

Step 2 — install with one command

Every plugin page shows its install command, usually one of these two shapes:

# GitHub-hosted plugin
dsh plugin --profile web add github:owner/repo

# npm-package plugin
dsh plugin --profile web add @scope/package-name

The command does three things: resolves the package, adds it to the profile's plugin list, and installs it with pnpm. The --profile web flag targets the web profile — omit it if you run DSH headless.

Step 3 — restart and verify

Installation takes effect on restart:

# if DSH runs as a service
brew services restart dsh

then reload http://127.0.0.1:3080. The plugin's UI (if it has one) appears under Settings → Plugins or wherever the plugin registers itself. To confirm from the terminal:

dsh plugin list

Updating and removing

dsh plugin update @scope/package-name   # update one plugin
dsh plugin remove @scope/package-name   # uninstall

Updates behave like installs: restart to activate.

Before you trust a plugin

Installing runs the plugin's code with your machine's permissions, so treat the first install like installing any software:

  1. Read the source repository — at least the README and the plugin manifest.
  2. Check the license and maintenance (archived repos are a red flag).
  3. Prefer plugins this directory marks as plugin type with a real description; empty or vague pages are a weak signal.
  4. For anything that asks for network access, credentials or shell execution, understand why before installing.

DSH plugins are a young ecosystem: most projects are small, community-maintained, and worth a quick look before you run them. The directory verifies facts — it does not review code for you.