DSH Plugin FAQ
The questions people actually ask about DeepSeek Harness plugins — what they are, how many exist, how to install and remove them, what review means here, and what this directory does not claim. Every figure below is measured from this site's own data at build time.
What is a DSH plugin?
DeepSeek Harness (DSH) is the open-source agent harness published under the deepseek-ai GitHub organisation, and its own repository sums itself up in four words: Everything is a Plugin. A DSH plugin is a package that adds one capability to that harness — a UI surface, a tool, a memory backend, a provider bridge, a theme — and it installs into one of your DSH profiles rather than into the harness core. A plugin is code the harness loads and runs as you, not a config snippet or a theme file.
How many DSH plugins are there?
dshpacks lists 2,961 English-visible plugins today, out of 2,964 repositories in our dataset; 1,651 of the listed plugins have been reviewed, and 1,583 of those publish a verified install command. The ingested total has not moved since 2026-09-05, so what changes day to day is how much of the existing ecosystem has been reviewed.
Are DSH plugins free?
dshpacks does not record licence metadata, so we cannot answer that per plugin — and we will not guess. Every listed entry is a public repository or a public package, so the licence is stated upstream: check the LICENSE file in the repository before using a plugin in a commercial product. When a plugin page here shows no licence, it is because we do not hold that field, not because there is none.
How do I install a DSH plugin?
Copy the command on the plugin page — every install line on dshpacks is reproduced verbatim from the upstream README, never normalised or invented. Across the 1,651 reviewed plugins the forms split like this: 1,349 document a harness-managed dsh plugin ... add command, 97 are npm or npx lines, 39 install straight from a repository, 7 are Python package installs, and 91 publish a release download or installer instead of a package add. The step-by-step version is in How to install DSH plugins.
What is a DSH profile, and which one should I install into?
DSH keeps separate profiles so one machine can run different plugin sets. The install command names the profile, and web is by far the most common in the commands we publish: 1,188 of the 1,349 harness-managed install lines name it. The rest name another profile (tui, demo, headless, default) or leave the profile field blank upstream — in which case the dshpacks page says so instead of filling it in.
Why does a page say the install command is not confirmed?
68 of the 1,651 reviewed plugins publish no runnable install line: their README shows only a placeholder such as <owner>/<repo> or a path on the author machine, or the plugin ships as a downloaded installer. Rather than print a guess, the page names the source and states that the command is not confirmed. Read the upstream README before installing one of those.
What does reviewed mean on dshpacks?
A reviewed plugin has had its README fetched from the upstream repository, its install command copied verbatim from that README, its package name cross-checked against the npm registry where a package exists (and the page says when a registry name belongs to a different repository), its release assets checked when the install is a binary, and its version recorded only where the registry or the release list confirms it. 1,597 of the 1,651 reviewed entries carry a confirmed version; the rest say so explicitly. Review is a metadata check, not a security audit.
Does dshpacks run or test the plugins?
No. We never execute plugin code. The runtime_test verdict shown on plugin pages comes from the upstream plugin radar we ingest, not from a test we perform, and a passing verdict is not a guarantee about any individual plugin. Treat every install as running someone else code in your harness.
Are DSH plugins safe?
The same answer as for any young open-source ecosystem: most of it is fine, a few entries are not worth the risk, and the trust profile here is small — across the 2,961 listed plugins the median repository has 2 GitHub stars and 85% have fewer than ten. A plugin runs with your permissions inside the harness, so read the install line and the code before you paste it. The full walkthrough is in Are DSH plugins safe?
How do I uninstall a DSH plugin?
140 of the reviewed entries document the matching removal form in their own documentation: dsh plugin --profile <profile> remove <package>. Use the profile you installed into. Where a plugin documents no removal line, the dshpacks page does not invent one — check the plugin command in the harness CLI on your machine.
What if a plugin is only on GitHub, not npm?
39 of the reviewed entries install straight from a repository, either through a github:owner/repo add or a clone-and-build step. Not every plugin is published, and a few live in monorepos where only a subdirectory is the plugin; those pages say so.
What are the desktop apps and installers in the directory?
91 reviewed entries install from a release artifact — a DMG, an EXE, a .deb or a tarball — rather than a package add. Most of those are desktop shells or standalone builds of the harness, and their pages link the release and state which version the asset belongs to. Treat a downloaded binary like any other: check the publisher and the release page before you run it.
How is the directory organised?
Every plugin carries one of 27 categories and each category has its own hub page. The largest today are Other (490), Web UI Enhancements (367) and Coding & Development (321). Plugin pages that are not yet reviewed ship as noindex, follow — discoverable and linkable, but not submitted to Google until they carry a verified install command.
How often is the directory updated?
A pipeline runs every day: it re-ingests the upstream plugin radar, rebuilds every page, validates the sitemaps, internal links, structured data and page heads, and deploys. Counts on this site — including the ones in this FAQ — are measured at build time, so they track the data instead of being written by hand.
How do I find the right plugin for my job?
Start from a category hub or from dsh Packs, which groups reviewed plugins by use case. Every reviewed plugin page also lists four similar plugins from the same category and shows the runtime verdict, star count and exact install command, so you can compare before installing.
What are dsh Packs?
6 curated shortlists — web UI, memory, vision, skills, coding and comms — built only from plugins that have been reviewed and that publish a pasteable install command. They are curated by use case, not co-tested: we have not run the members together, and the packs page states that plainly.
Can I use DSH plugins with Claude Code or Codex?
No. DSH plugins target the DeepSeek Harness plugin API and its profiles, so they load inside DSH. dshpacks reviews DSH plugins only and does not test or claim compatibility with other harnesses; a project that describes itself as a plugin for a different tool is not listed here as a DSH plugin.
How do I get my own plugin listed?
Send it through the submission page. We check that the repository is a DSH plugin, that its README publishes a runnable install command, and that the plugin is not already listed under a different repository. There is no charge and no paid placement anywhere in the directory, and being listed is not an endorsement or a test result.
Is dshpacks affiliated with DeepSeek?
No. dshpacks is an independent directory. The data comes from public repositories and from the upstream plugin radar we ingest, while DeepSeek Harness itself is a separate project published under the deepseek-ai organisation. Nothing on this site is an official DeepSeek release.
How many DSH plugins have a graphical interface?
524 of the listed plugins are filed in the two UI categories — 367 under Web UI Enhancements and 157 under UI Enhancements. The rest are tools, model providers, memory backends, workflow and infrastructure plugins.
Where to go next
- How to install DSH plugins — the step-by-step command walkthrough
- Are DSH plugins safe? — what an install runs, and the checks you can run yourself
- Best DeepSeek Harness plugins in 2026 — ranked picks by category
- dsh Packs — curated shortlists of reviewed plugins
- Submit a plugin — how a missing plugin gets listed
Where to go next
- Best DeepSeek Harness plugins — ranked picks by category
- How to install DSH plugins — step-by-step guide
- Are DSH plugins safe? — what to check before installing
- DSH vs Claude Code vs Codex — harness comparison
- Pi vs DSH vs Claude Code — the context-management debate
- dsh Packs — curated bundles of reviewed plugins
- The plugin directory — every reviewed plugin, searchable
- DSH ecosystem report — the numbers behind the directory
- DeepSeek Harness tutorial — get dsh running, step by step
- DeepSeek Harness vs OpenCode — how the two open agent harnesses differ
- DeepSeek Harness review — the harness and its plugins, assessed