Installation

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If you are an AI agent: this page is the complete procedure. Follow it in order, then use the last section to confirm it worked.

curl -s https://raw.githubusercontent.com/riesbri/dshline/main/docs/install.md

Requirements

• Node.js ^22.19 || >=24.
• A working DeepSeek Harness installation with a model configured. If dsh web starts and answers a prompt, you are ready.
• A real terminal. This interface needs a terminal for both input and output. If either is redirected, it exits with an error instead of waiting with nothing on screen. For scripts, use --profile headless instead.

The short version

npm install -g @deepseek-ai/dsh @dshline/dshline   # the harness, and this interface
dshline                                            # from any folder, on any machine

The first time you run it, dshline asks whether Harness may create the dshline profile and install this package into it. Answer yes and the same command carries on into the session you asked for; there is no second step. dshline --setup performs that install on its own, without asking, which is what a script, a retry, or a source checkout needs.

The rest of this page explains each step, and what to do when one of them does not apply to you.

1. Make sure you have a dsh command

This plugin is started by the harness's own command-line program, so you need a way to run it. Either option works.

Install the harness globally:

npm install -g @deepseek-ai/dsh

Or, if you work from a harness source checkout, use its workspace script — pnpm dsh behaves the same as dsh:

cd ~/path/to/deepseek-harness
pnpm dsh --version

The rest of this page writes dsh. If you use the second option, write pnpm dsh instead, and run it from inside the harness folder.

2. Manual setup through Harness

dsh plugin --profile dshline add @dshline/dshline
dsh --profile dshline

A profile is a named set of plugins, stored in $DSH_HOME/profiles/<name> (by default ~/.dsh). The first command creates the dshline profile if it does not exist, installs this plugin into it, and adds it to the profile's plugin list. Your profile is now the harness's standard set plus this interface.

Installing from a source checkout

To run changes that are not released yet:

git clone https://github.com/riesbri/dshline && cd dshline
pnpm install && pnpm build
dsh plugin --profile dshline add ./packages/dshline

A relative path is resolved against the folder the command runs in. With pnpm dsh that folder is the harness checkout, not this one, so give an absolute path:

pnpm dsh plugin --profile dshline add ~/path/to/dshline/packages/dshline
pnpm dsh --profile dshline

The same applies to dshline --setup when DSH_HARNESS names a harness checkout: that launcher only runs with the checkout as its working folder, so dshline --setup ./packages/dshline would install a folder of that name from inside the harness. Name the path in full:

dshline --setup ~/path/to/dshline/packages/dshline

Installing directly from a Git URL is not supported. dsh plugin add github:riesbri/dshline would install the repository root, which is a workspace containing two packages rather than the plugin itself. Use the npm package name, or a path to packages/dshline.

3. Get a one-word command

Installing this package globally puts a dshline command on your PATH:

npm install -g @dshline/dshline
dshline             # the same as: dsh --profile dshline --cwd "$PWD"
dshline --setup     # the same as: dsh plugin --profile dshline add @dshline/dshline
dshline --version   # this package's version, with no harness and no profile needed

It is a small wrapper around the harness's launcher, and nothing more: it finds dsh, adds --profile dshline unless you asked for another profile, pins the session to the folder you ran it from, and passes everything else through. So dshline --resume, dshline "run the tests" and dshline --help all reach the real launcher.

Two things it needs to find:

• The launcher, looked for in four places, in the order in which you have already made a decision: $DSH_BIN, then $DSH_HARNESS, then dsh on your PATH, then the @deepseek-ai/dsh package sitting next to its own — which is why installing both globally in one command is enough.

  For a source checkout, set DSH_HARNESS to the checkout itself:

  export DSH_HARNESS=~/path/to/deepseek-harness
  

  A checkout has no dsh executable to point DSH_BIN at: its launcher is a TypeScript entry run through a loader, written down in the checkout's own package.json as a dsh script. dshline reads that script and runs it from the checkout, so it keeps working if the harness moves its own files. DSH_BIN is for a real executable — a global install, or a node_modules/.bin/dsh from installing the harness as a dependency.

• The profile. The first run offers to create it: one question, then dsh plugin --profile dshline add @dshline/dshline through the launcher it just found, then the session you originally asked for — dshline --resume, dshline -C ~/code/api and dshline "run the tests" all continue into what you typed. Answer no and nothing is installed.

  Three things that behaviour deliberately does not do. It does not run without a terminal to ask on: a script or a CI job is told to run dshline --setup, because the install reaches the network through pnpm and nothing scripted agreed to that. It does not touch a profile that already exists, however broken it looks — the harness's own loader is what diagnoses a failed profile, and dshline --setup is the retry. And it does not apply at all when you name a profile yourself: dshline --profile other, or even dshline --profile dshline, is you using harness profiles directly, so dshline inspects nothing and simply forwards the choice.

  dshline --setup is also how you install from a checkout instead of the registry: give it the path, dshline --setup ./packages/dshline.

The npm package is scoped as @dshline/dshline. The unscoped dshline package on npm is unrelated.

4. Confirm it worked

dshline --version          # the version a bug report asks for
dshline --dump-config      # look for a "# == dshline" section
dshline --help             # the flags this interface adds
dshline                    # a banner, an input line, and a "ready" status line

Inside the session, type / to list the commands your profile provides, then press ctrl-d to leave.

If a keyboard shortcut does nothing, run node tools/keyprobe.mjs from a checkout of this repository. It shows what your terminal sends and how this project reads it, which is what a bug report needs.

Troubleshooting

Command "dsh" not found

$ pnpm dsh --profile dshline
[ERR_PNPM_RECURSIVE_EXEC_FIRST_FAIL] Command "dsh" not found

pnpm dsh is a script belonging to the harness repository, so it only exists when you run it from inside a harness checkout. Run it from anywhere else — including a clone of this repository — and pnpm reports that there is no such command. Three ways to fix it:

# 1. Install both globally and use the one-word command from anywhere.
npm install -g @deepseek-ai/dsh @dshline/dshline
dshline

# 2. Keep your source checkout, and name it.
export DSH_HARNESS=~/path/to/deepseek-harness
dshline

# 3. Run it from the harness folder, pointing the session elsewhere with -C.
cd ~/path/to/deepseek-harness
pnpm dsh --profile dshline -C ~/code/my-project

$DSH_BIN points at … which does not exist

$ export DSH_BIN=~/path/to/deepseek-harness/node_modules/.bin/dsh
$ dshline
dshline: $DSH_BIN points at …/node_modules/.bin/dsh, which does not exist.

A harness source checkout does not contain that file, and nothing builds it: the launcher there is a script in the checkout's package.json, which is why pnpm dsh works from inside the checkout and a path to a binary does not. Name the checkout instead:

export DSH_HARNESS=~/path/to/deepseek-harness

DSH_BIN is only for a real executable, such as the one npm install -g @deepseek-ai/dsh puts on your PATH.

the "dshline" profile is not set up from a script

$ dshline < /dev/null
dshline: the "dshline" harness profile is not set up.
Automatic first-run setup asks first, because it installs packages, and there is
no terminal here to ask on.

The first-run question needs a terminal on both input and output, and installing packages without being asked is not something a scripted run should do silently. Do the install once, explicitly — dshline --setup works with no terminal, because naming it is the permission — and the scripted dshline runs normally after that.

Windows: an argument contains a line break

A first task with a newline in it cannot be passed through the dsh.cmd shim npm installs on Windows: a cmd command line has no representation for one, so the character would end the command rather than travel inside the argument. dshline refuses instead of handing your text to cmd as syntax. Send the text as one line, or type it into the session instead of on the command line.

It exits immediately with a message about needing a terminal

That is the frontend refusing to start without a real terminal, which happens when its input or output is redirected. Run the launcher directly rather than through a wrapper that does not pass a terminal through, or use --profile headless for scripted runs.

A keyboard shortcut does nothing

Run node tools/keyprobe.mjs from a checkout of this repository and press the key. It prints the bytes your terminal sends and the key this project decodes them into; an empty result is a bug worth reporting.

Uninstalling

This removes both the package and the profile's reference to it:

dsh plugin --profile dshline remove @dshline/dshline

Your profile, its settings, and the harness's saved sessions are left alone. To remove the profile as well, delete $DSH_HOME/profiles/dshline.

If you installed from a checkout you are editing

The plugin is linked, and that link resolves to the compiled lib/ folder — not to src/. So after every change to source:

pnpm build     # in the dshline checkout

Then start the interface again. If you skip this step, you are testing the previous version. See AGENTS.md.