Essential DeepSeek Harness Plugin Setup (2026)
12 curated DeepSeek Harness (dsh) plugins worth installing on day one — UI, memory, vision, notifications, session tools — with one copy-paste command block.
A fresh DeepSeek Harness (dsh) install is genuinely bare: the base and web bundles give you a working agent and nothing else — no memory across sessions, no desktop notifications, no vision for text-only models, no rewind. These 12 plugins, pulled from six different categories in FindHarness's curated index, are what most people end up installing in their first week anyway. Full picks and one copy-paste command block below.
Why these 12, and not a longer list
This isn't a ranked "best of" — those exist per category elsewhere on this blog (see the Next steps section). This is a starter kit: one or two picks each from UI, Theming, Memory, Tools & Capabilities, Notifications, and Sessions & Messages, chosen from the human-reviewed awesome-dsh-plugin collection (source=awesome) for being either the highest-starred entry in their category or filling a gap dsh has no answer for out of the box (memory, most notably — see Best DeepSeek Harness Memory Plugins for why). Stars are a snapshot as of August 2026.
Before running any of this, read How to Install DeepSeek Harness Plugins if you haven't yet — several of these are GitHub-sourced and will trigger the allowBuilds prompt on first install, and you should understand what you're agreeing to before you hit yes a dozen times in a row.
It's also worth deciding up front whether you want this stack in your main web profile or in a separate one. dsh's profile system exists precisely for this: a dedicated profile keeps a heavy plugin stack isolated from a minimal one you use for quick, low-risk tasks, without touching global configuration. If that split matters to your workflow, swap --profile web below for a profile name of your own before you run anything — the CLI will bootstrap it automatically on first use.
The one-shot install
Run these in sequence against your web profile. Each is a separate dsh plugin add call rather than one combined command, because that's how the CLI actually works — but you can paste the whole block and let it run unattended, checking for any allowBuilds prompts as they come up.
dsh plugin --profile web add github:zhu1090093659/dsh-web-ui
dsh plugin --profile web add github:omdsh-dev/dsh-better-sidebar
dsh plugin --profile web add github:small-tailqwq/dsh-deep-whale
dsh plugin --profile web add github:liustack/modlens
dsh plugin --profile web add github:anionex/dsh-vision-toolkit
dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-mnemon
dsh plugin --profile web add github:loserfox/distill
dsh plugin --profile web add github:omdsh-dev/dsh-notification
dsh plugin --profile web add github:omdsh-dev/dsh-open-in-vscode
dsh plugin --profile web add github:anionex/dsh-turn-rewind
dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-chat-import
dsh plugin --profile web add github:omdsh-dev/dsh-security-audit
The 12, by category
UI Enhancements
dsh-web-ui-all (1,970 stars) — the highest-starred plugin in the entire catalog. One install bundles a task board, Git graph view, right-side panel, remote/mobile UI, desktop pet, live token stats, and a full skin center. Installs from the packages/dsh-web-ui-all subpath — see the plugin page for the full install note.
DSH-better-sidebar (792 stars) — a full sidebar workbench: file rendering and editing, terminal, Git, and subagents, with a tab system third-party plugins can register into.
Themes & Appearance
dsh-deep-whale (605 stars) — the top-starred pick in Themes & Appearance, a full whale-girl skin series under the "maid-atelier" line. Pairs naturally with dsh-web-ui-all's built-in skin center above.
Tools & Capabilities
modlens (1,320 stars) — the second-highest-starred plugin in the whole catalog. A vision bridge for text-only models: paste in an image, get back structured JSON evidence (OCR, layout, semantic tags) the model can reason over.
dsh-vision-toolkit (337 stars) — a broader companion to modlens: intent-aware image Q&A, long-screenshot OCR, UI reproduction, visual grounding, and pixel-diffing, if your workflow needs more than a single OCR bridge.
Memory
dsh-mnemon (16 stars, published to npm) — local three-tier memory: Runtime Memory, retrievable Documents, and supervised Memory Spaces. Worth installing specifically because dsh has no official long-term memory feature — this is filling a documented gap, not competing with a built-in.
distill (15 stars) — automatic conversation distillation via a background subagent, which reflects on the conversation and creates or updates skills from it. A different angle on the same memory problem — see Best DeepSeek Harness Memory Plugins for more options and the official MCP-memory-server alternative.
Notifications & Integrations
dsh-notification (40 stars) — desktop notifications on turn completion, with per-outcome controls and keyword rules. The plugin most people install right after they stop babysitting the browser tab.
dsh-open-in-vscode (40 stars, tied with dsh-notification) — a button in the Web GUI that opens the current workspace directly in VS Code.
Sessions & Messages
dsh-turn-rewind (42 stars) — rewinds conversation and workspace state, backed by a persistent Change Ledger. The safety net for when an agent goes sideways and you want to back up cleanly rather than start a new session from scratch.
dsh-chat-import (28 stars, published to npm) — imports full-fidelity chat histories from 13 other coding agents (Claude Code, Codex, ChatGPT, Cursor, Gemini, opencode, and more) as resumable dsh sessions, with reverse export back to Claude Code. The one to install if you're migrating rather than starting fresh — see Migrating from Claude Code to DeepSeek Harness for the broader migration picture.
One from Development & Runtime, for good measure
dsh-security-audit (10 stars) — a local, read-only security audit: config, plugin origins, sessions, and network exposure, reported as a redacted risk summary. Given that you've just run eleven other allowBuilds-triggering installs, this is a reasonable last step to check what you actually granted access to. See Best DeepSeek Harness Plugins for Developers for more in this vein.
FAQ
Do I need all 12, or can I pick a subset?
Pick a subset freely — nothing here depends on anything else in the list. If you only install two, dsh-notification and one of the memory plugins (dsh-mnemon or distill) address the two gaps most people notice first: no alerts, and no memory across sessions.
Will this many plugins slow down my sessions?
Each plugin adds some context cost for its tool/skill descriptions, even before it's actively used. If you're running a large stack and want to measure that cost directly rather than guess, see dsh-context-doctor in Best DeepSeek Harness Plugins for Developers.
Why include a theming plugin in an "essential" list?
Because star counts say it's genuinely popular, and unlike the other 11, it costs nothing functionally to skip if you don't care about it — it's the one item here that's about preference rather than filling a real gap. Included because it's a common day-one install, not because it's mission-critical.
What if a GitHub install fails with an allowBuilds error?
That's expected the first time you install a plugin that needs a build step — see How to Install DeepSeek Harness Plugins for the exact pnpm-workspace.yaml fix and what you're actually granting when you allow it.
Next steps
For the category-by-category ranked lists these 12 were drawn from, browse Best DeepSeek Harness UI Plugins, Best DeepSeek Harness Memory Plugins, and Best DeepSeek Harness Session and Message Plugins. For the full 800+-plugin map, see DeepSeek Harness Plugins by Category. Or browse everything at /plugins.