dsh-tray

简体中文 | English

A Windows tray manager for DeepSeek Harness: start / restart / stop / auto-restart on crash, all from the tray's right-click menu. No terminal needed, no risk of accidentally closing the window — works best paired with a browser app-mode window.

Disclaimer: This project is the product of pure "vibe coding" — no rigorous testing or code review, and unknown bugs may exist. Use at your own risk. If you run into issues, please report them on Issues.

Features

• Lifecycle management: start / restart / stop / exit, all from the tray menu; restart prefers the soft restart (replay the exact boot invocation of the running host, hand off through a detached helper that waits for the port to release, then relaunch), falling back to the hard restart on failure
• Single-click tray icon: starts the harness and opens the window if it's not running; opens the window directly if it is
• Status icon: blue whale while running; black/white whale when stopped, switching with the system light/dark theme in real time
• Auto-restart on crash (toggleable): brings the harness back up after an unexpected exit, with cooldowns to prevent restart loops
• Start with Windows (toggleable): writes HKCU\...\Run, no admin rights needed
• Native system menu: Windows 11 rounded theme, follows the dark mode automatically
• No terminal window: launches node dsh web hidden, output redirected to a dedicated harness.log independent of the tray's lifetime
• Auto-refresh on restart: refreshes the browser app-mode window when a restart finishes
• On-demand elevation: if the harness runs as administrator, the tray elevates itself to kill it (silent when UAC is set to "never notify")
• Manual theme: follow system / light / dark (settings window; ini theme key)
• Auto-update: one-click download + sha256 verification + deploy hint from the settings window when a new version is found
• Logs: %LOCALAPPDATA%\dsh-tray\tray.log, auto-rotated past 5 MB

Download & Install

• Download the latest dsh-tray.exe from Releases
• Single file, zero dependencies: no runtime to install (Windows 10/11 ships .NET Framework 4.8), just double-click to run
• First run: as an unsigned tool, SmartScreen may show "Unknown publisher" — click "More info" → "Run anyway" (see FAQ)
• Upgrading: overwrite the old exe with the new one; your settings (autostart, auto-restart, dshtray.ini) are untouched. When the settings window detects a new version you can also auto-update in one click (download + verification + deploy hint)
• Want to build it yourself or contribute? See the developer documentation

Quick Start

1. Dependencies

Dependency	Notes
Windows 10/11	.NET Framework 4.8, built in
Node.js	required to run the harness
DeepSeek Harness	install it per the DeepSeek-Harness repo
Browser (Chromium-based: Chrome / Edge)	optional, for the browser app-mode window

2. Create a browser app-mode window (optional but recommended)

The harness Web UI lives at http://127.0.0.1:3080. To keep it out of your browser tabs, turn it into a standalone browser app-mode window (how to create one is left to you — search "browser app mode").

The tray's "Open Window" menu item will then launch this window. Closing it does not affect the harness — click the tray icon to reopen it anytime.

3. Run dsh-tray

Double-click dsh-tray.exe → the whale icon appears in the tray → the harness starts automatically (no terminal window). No more typing dsh web by hand. Start/restart/stop and more live in the tray's right-click menu — see Usage.

Usage

Tray menu

Right-click the tray icon (menu language follows the system UI language, or lang in dshtray.ini):

Open Window
────────
Start           ← available when the harness is stopped
Restart         ← available when running
Stop            ← stops the harness only; the tray stays
────────
Settings…
────────
Exit            ← exits the tray only; the harness keeps running (use Stop to stop it)

Click behavior

Action	Behavior
Left click on the tray icon	Not running: start and open the window; running: open the window
Right click	Shows the menu only

Status icon

State	Icon
Running	Blue whale
Stopped	Black/white whale, follows the system light/dark theme

Configuration

dshtray.ini is the tray's single configuration file. It is auto-generated next to the exe on first run (with a commented template), and every toggle in the settings window ("Settings…") writes this same file. Changes apply on the next start.

# dshtray.ini
url = http://127.0.0.1:3080   # default; port derived from the URL (change it for a custom port)
lang =                        # UI language zh/en; empty = follow system
autorestart = true            # auto-restart on crash: true/false
autostart = false             # start with Windows: true/false (also written to the startup key)
theme =                       # theme: light/dark, empty = follow system
node =                        # path to node.exe; empty = auto-detect
dshentry =                    # path to the dsh entry script; empty = auto-detect
dshworkdir =                  # dsh working directory; empty = inferred
chrome =                      # Chromium-family browser path; empty = auto-detect Chrome/Edge

An empty line means the default / auto-detection for that item (node / dsh entry / browser resolve via PATH, common install paths, npm global directory); deleting or commenting a line works the same. url is the only port setting (the port is derived from it). autostart is the single source for start-with-Windows; the Windows startup key is only a mirror (synced from the file at startup). The theme manual theme (light/dark) takes precedence over the system setting; empty = follow the system.

Logs

• %LOCALAPPDATA%\dsh-tray\tray.log — tray operations (start / stop / restart / elevation / auto-restart etc.), auto-rotated to tray.log.old past 5 MB
• %LOCALAPPDATA%\dsh-tray\harness.log — harness output, independent of the tray's lifetime (keeps writing after the tray exits)
• The tray menu no longer has "Open Logs"; open the logs folder from the settings window ("Settings…")

FAQ

Full FAQ: docs/FAQ.en.md(完整 FAQ 见 docs/FAQ.md)。A few of the most frequently asked:

Does dsh-tray access the network?

On startup it silently checks GitHub for the latest version once in the background (only once; works offline, fails silently, no popup); otherwise it does not access the network. Beyond that it only works locally: starting/stopping local processes, reading/writing the registry and logs, and launching your local browser when you choose "Open Window".

The harness is still running after I exit the tray?

By design: "Exit" only quits the tray; the harness keeps running. Use the "Stop" menu item to fully stop it.

Why does a UAC prompt sometimes appear?

When the harness was started as administrator, stopping/restarting it requires admin rights, which triggers UAC. If your UAC is set to "never notify", it completes silently without a prompt.

License

MIT License — free to use, modify, distribute and use commercially; just keep the copyright notice.