DeepSeek Harness for VS Code

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An independent VS Code sidebar for DeepSeek Harness. It provides a Copilot-style agent experience while keeping the local Harness runtime separate from GitHub Copilot.

This is a community integration, not an official DeepSeek or Microsoft product.

Highlights

• Native VS Code Activity Bar sidebar with streaming chat, collapsible reasoning, tool activity, task progress, approvals, and questions.
• Full-name model selector for DeepSeek V4 Pro and DeepSeek V4 Flash, plus configurable OpenAI, Anthropic Claude, Google Gemini, and OpenAI-compatible API routes.
• Editor ghost-text completions, accepted with Tab.
• Context attachments for selections, the active file, Problems, external files/folders, images, and ZIP archives.
• Bounded context attachments: up to 16 items / 100K text characters per request; folder context is combined into one named attachment.
• Conversation and Trace tabs, live in-session telemetry, context-use meter, manual /compact, and Auto through Max reasoning controls.
• Three access modes: Read only, Workspace write, and All access.
• Per-turn file-change cards, Explorer decorations, direct jumps to edited source, per-file revert, and optional workspace snapshots.
• Runtime and Harness views for status, skills, presets, providers, and child agents, plus a Plugin Center for Skill invocation and preset management.
• The API key stays in VS Code SecretStorage; it is never written to the workspace or bundled into a release.

Requirements

• Desktop VS Code 1.100 or newer
• Node.js 22.19+ or 24+ with Corepack
• An API key supplied by each user on their own computer for the provider they choose

Portable release scope

The v0.2 portable update follows the v0.1 release layout: the archive contains the VSIX, the DeepSeek-only Harness source, and the Windows/Linux/macOS setup scripts. It starts without third-party Harness plugins.

It does not include API keys, VS Code SecretStorage, local Harness profiles, chat history, node_modules, third-party plugin packages or configuration (including ModLens), or any workspace files. Users may install trusted third-party plugins themselves from the Plugin Center after setup; those plugins and their credentials remain local to that user's computer.

Install a portable release

1. Download and extract the complete release archive from GitHub Releases.

2. Run the setup script from the extracted folder:

   Windows PowerShell

   Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process Bypass
   .\setup.ps1
   

   Linux or macOS

   sh setup.sh
   

3. In VS Code, run Extensions: Install from VSIX... and select the included VSIX file.

4. Run DeepSeek Harness: Select Harness Folder, then select the extracted harness folder.

5. Open the DeepSeek Harness Activity Bar icon, choose Manage Model Providers, and configure DeepSeek or another supported provider.

6. Optionally run DeepSeek Harness: Verify Model Connection to validate the selected model.

The first setup downloads dependencies and builds the local Harness runtime. Later use does not require running the setup script again.

Capability hot updates

The Harness view contains a Hot update group with an automatic-refresh switch, an immediate refresh action, watched-source list, pending-change indicator, and the last update summary.

When enabled, it watches:

• Workspace Skills under .agents/skills and .dsh/skills
• User Skills in the private local Harness home, under .agents/skills and .dsh/skills
• User-authored agent presets under the private local Harness home .agent-presets directory
• Bundled Skills in the selected Harness runtime
• The local Harness settings.yaml file, including provider and agent-preset configuration

Changed capabilities are re-read without reinstalling the extension. A task already running retains its original Skill set; changes are applied after the task reaches a safe point, normally before the next turn.

The Open Plugin Center action in the Harness view invokes a Skill, installs or removes a trusted external Harness package, creates or manages a user-owned agent preset, or opens VS Code's native extension controls. External-package installation requires an explicit warning confirmation because package install scripts and runtime code run outside Harness sandboxing. In a user preset's agent.cordis.yml, use disabled: false to enable a plugin row and disabled: true to disable it; use the same UI to delete a user preset. VS Code's extension controls are the supported place to disable or uninstall the whole extension.

Extension code, a VSIX package, compiled Harness code, and process environment credentials are not hot-swapped. Those require a Runner restart, VS Code reload, or a new extension version as appropriate.

Build from source

cd extension
corepack pnpm install
corepack pnpm run check
corepack pnpm run build
corepack pnpm run package

Build the copied Harness runtime once:

cd harness
corepack pnpm install --frozen-lockfile
corepack pnpm run build

For development, open extension/ in VS Code and run the Run Extension launch configuration.

Repository layout

extension/   VS Code extension source
harness/     Full, buildable DeepSeek-only Harness source

Generated archives, VSIX files, dependency directories, scratch workspaces, logs, keys, and local chat snapshots are intentionally excluded from Git.

License

The bundled upstream DeepSeek Harness source is MIT licensed. This integration is also released under the MIT License.