Cradler Harness

August 16, 2026 · View on GitHub

DeepSeek Harness (dsh) — a coding agent that runs on your own machine — with Cradler Router already set up. Clone it, pass your key, and the agent opens with 24 models behind it.

git clone https://github.com/cradler-ai/harness.git
cd harness
node start.js sk-cr-your-key

That is the whole setup. No model provider to register, no base URL to paste, no settings.yaml to learn. The first run installs dsh from npm and opens its web UI; later runs remember your key, so node start.js on its own is enough.

Get a key at cradler.ai/dashboard/router. A $0 balance still reaches the free model, so the first run always produces something.

Requires Node.js 22.19+ or 24+.

The agent is dsh's — we only fill in two settings

This repository publishes no package and forks no code. It installs the official @deepseek-ai/dsh release and supplies the configuration a Cradler user would otherwise type by hand:

What	Value
Model route	`https://router.cradler.ai/v1` as a `cradler` provider
Models	every model your account can reach, read live at setup — not a hardcoded list
Default model	the best your balance allows; the free model at `$0`

Everything else — the agent, its tools, its UI, its updates — is upstream's.

What it writes

Path	What
`~/.cradler/harness/settings.yaml`	the provider block above, in a dedicated harness home so your existing `~/.dsh` is never touched
`~/.cradler/harness/key`	your key, owner-only (`0600`); `--no-save` skips it and reads `$CRADLER_ROUTER_KEY` instead

Your key is not in settings.yaml: the config references the CRADLER_ROUTER_KEY environment variable (apiKeyEnv), and the launcher passes it to dsh at spawn time.

Run it again any time — it re-verifies the key and refreshes the model list. A model you picked in the web UI's settings page survives the rewrite; --reset starts clean.

Where the code runs

On your machine. dsh is a local coding agent: it reads and writes your files and runs shell commands, like any other terminal-based agent. Cradler serves only the model requests — we never see your files, your repository, or your commands.

Two consequences worth stating plainly:

The web UI binds 127.0.0.1 by default. Do not put it on a public address. dsh ships no authentication, so a non-loopback bind hands anyone on that network a shell on your machine. That is documented upstream, and it is why this is a local tool rather than a hosted service.
Sandboxing is dsh's to provide. Its process sandbox governs file effects only — network and process visibility are outside it — so treat the agent as you would treat running a script someone sent you.

Options

node start.js [sk-cr-key] [options] [-- dsh args…]

--model <id>     default model (otherwise the best your balance allows)
--port <port>    web UI port (0 lets the OS pick)
--host <host>    web UI bind host (default 127.0.0.1 — read the section above first)
--home <dir>     harness home (default ~/.cradler/harness)
--reset          rewrite settings.yaml from the live catalog
--no-save        do not store the key on disk; read it from $CRADLER_ROUTER_KEY instead
--print-config   print the settings.yaml that would be written, then exit
--setup-only     configure and verify, but do not launch

Anything after -- goes straight to dsh, so its other profiles are one flag away:

node start.js -- --profile headless "run the tests and summarise failures"

node --test runs this repository's own suite.

Models

Whatever your Cradler Router account can reach — Claude, GPT, Gemini, DeepSeek, Grok — through one key and one bill. Because the list is read from your account instead of hardcoded here, a new model on the Router appears on your next run.

Billing, usage and top-ups live in the Router console.

Uninstall

rm -rf ~/.cradler/harness   # config and saved key
rm -rf harness              # this clone, dsh included

Nothing is installed globally and nothing else is written.

Credits

DeepSeek Harness is MIT-licensed software by DeepSeek. All credit for the harness belongs upstream, and bugs in the agent itself belong in their issue tracker. dsh is pinned here to an exact version we have tested end to end, because it is a 0.1.0-rc developer preview whose interfaces still move.