dsh-activity-heat · Recent Activity

A DeepSeek Harness plugin that surfaces the sessions and workspaces you most recently talked to, using a heat score derived from elapsed time — so the conversation you just had never gets buried.

English | 中文

Why

Sessions pile up in the DSH sidebar, nested inside workspace groups. The one you just spoke in is pushed out of sight within minutes.

This plugin computes a 0–100% heat score from time since last activity and expresses it in three places plus a panel — the more recent, the more visible.

What you see

Where	What it does
Sidebar entry	A heat-ring icon whose brightness follows the hottest session in the profile
Session title	A small dot before the title text: solid = warm/blazing, hollow = active and cooler. Cold sessions are grey, hotter ones turn blue; active sessions pulse gently; hidden after 7 days. The row-leading cell stays with the host's state dot and the schedule clock
Session hover card	`Heat 4/5 · Warm`, `Last active: 40 min ago`, `This workspace is hot`; a green Done label when the session finished unseen
Main panel	Sessions / Workspaces views, each with heat filters and a count selector

Panel

Top-level switch: Sessions 58 / Workspaces 10 — no more mixed list
Two-tier toolbar: the panel no longer draws a title; the filled Sessions/Workspaces switch leads, followed by the text-tab heat filter (underline on the active band) and a lightweight text count picker labelled Count
Count selector: sessions 10 / 20 / 30 / 50, workspaces 5 / 10 / 20
Heat filter: All / Blazing / Warm / Active / Recent / Stale, with live counts
Every card: the bottom row is split into three groups divided by hairlines — ① cache hit rate + context usage (each with a mini progress bar) ② turns + steps + tokens ③ accumulated conversation time; items inside a group use a dot, groups are separated by a vertical rule. The Current state is a badge before the title, and the relative time lives in the right column, not the meta row.
Finished, not viewed: a session the agent has finished but you have not opened shows a green whale tail plus Done in the card's right-hand column — the same whale as Working, one static and one animated. Opening the session clears it immediately.
Waiting for answer: a session where the agent asked a question you have not answered shows an amber whale tail plus Waiting in the right-hand column; it outranks Done and Working (data from the host's userQuestions projection).
Token breakdown: hovering the token figure opens a details card — exact total, cache hit rate, uncached input, cached input, cache write (when non-zero) and output, mirroring the host's "Token usage" dialog
Time breakdown: hovering the conversation time opens a card with the active duration, a donut of wait / thinking / reply / tool-argument / tool-run / other, its legend and a proportional timeline strip — same source (contextTimeline.timing) and same segmentation as the host's timing panel; the card is portaled to document.body so the scrolling list can never clip it
Right column: a fixed 168 px column stacks the workspace name (top), the heat meter with its level label (middle) and the relative time (bottom), so every row lines up
One icon language: all five metrics share 12 px stroke icons drawn from currentColor — no colored emoji
Long lists scroll: the list caps its height, keeps 12 px of vertical padding so the first/last card's glow is not clipped, uses block flow (30–50 rows keep full height instead of being squashed), hides its native scrollbar, and shows a floating ⌃⌄ handle on the right while more rows remain
Click to open: a session row opens that session, a workspace row opens that workspace
Ordering: running sessions come first, then sessions by last activity; the workspace view applies the same rule before heat and time

Right-click a session card (or focus it and press Shift+F10 / the Menu key):

Action	Notes
Open session	Same as clicking the card
Open in terminal	Opens the session/workspace directory in the system terminal: Windows tries Windows Terminal → PowerShell 7 → Windows PowerShell; macOS uses Terminal; Linux uses x-terminal-emulator
Open in…	Expands a submenu on hover (first row is always "Open in terminal"), then lists the host's probed file managers, editors, terminals and Git GUIs; picking one opens the session's working directory there
Copy session ID / title / latest prompt / working directory	The latest prompt is copied in full; clipboard failures are reported
Pin / unpin	Writes the host sidebar order; this panel keeps sorting by heat
Rename…	Prefilled with the current title; an empty title cannot be saved
Fork session	Creates a branch at the last completed turn without navigating
Download session log	Uses the host `api/session.export` route; reports unavailability when the export package is not mounted
Archive session	Confirmation first; disabled while the session is running; 6 s undo

Workspace cards also offer open workspace, open in…, new session in workspace, and copy workspace name / path. Ungrouped cards have no actionable entries and ignore right-click.

The menu is portaled to document.body so the scrolling list cannot clip it; arrow keys plus Enter cover every action, Esc or an outside click closes it, and focus returns to the card.

Running sessions are marked

Cards for sessions with session.running === true get:

a whale-tail mark with a Working label in the card's right-hand whitespace — the mark is a 12-frame animated GIF that plays its own loop (no CSS wobble), 28 px tall
an orbiting light band around the card border (conic-gradient, one turn per 2.2 s)
a breathing outer glow (one cycle per 2.4 s)
a constant light-blue border around the frame, so the card outline never disappears when the breathing glow is at its dimmest
heat follows the run state: the host's updatedAt only advances at turn boundaries, so a long-running session keeps its old timestamp. Running sessions therefore count as heat 5/5 and sort first; the card still shows the real "last active" time and the hover card labels the heat "working"
the row-leading cell is left entirely to the host: running/pending rows draw the native StateDot, sessions with scheduled tasks draw the clock marker, and the plugin puts nothing there. Heat shows only as the small dot before the title

Workspace cards get the same treatment when any session inside that workspace is running — same whale-tail label, same orbiting band, same breathing glow — so live work is visible from the Workspaces view too.

A workspace card also aggregates everything that can be summed: session count, turns, steps, tokens and total conversation time. Cache hit rate is weighted across the workspace's billing buckets (not an average of percentages), and context usage shows the most loaded session. Nothing that cannot be summarised — prompts, the current-session flag — is carried over.

Finished but not viewed

A session the agent has finished, which you have not opened yet, shows a green whale tail plus Done (static vector, a 3.2 s breath) on the right of its card. It is the same tail as Working — blue animated GIF while running, green static copy when done. A Done card drops the orbit band, so a "finished" mark never sits inside a "running" frame:

Rule: the session is not the one currently selected, its updatedAt is newer than the local seen watermark, and this turn has ended — running === false, or running is still true but nothing has changed for 60 seconds (the host can lag a beat before flipping it back).
Current session: detected from the host sidebar's _selected class, not retainedBy.mainView — that is a reference count and can retain several sessions at once, which is why the Current badge previously landed on the wrong row.
Watermark: sessions whose activity predates the plugin's first run count as already seen, so installing it does not flood the list with Done marks; clicking a card, or switching to the session from the sidebar (its row becomes selected), clears the mark.
Storage: the watermark lives in localStorage (activity-heat.seen.v1) and survives refreshes. The Web build changes port on every launch, so localStorage changes origin and the watermark can be lost — in that case the plugin falls back to "finished within the last 30 minutes".
Caveat: the host's SessionSummary has no unread field — this is the plugin's own bookkeeping. Workspace cards do not show the state.

Waiting for answer is the third state: when the host's userQuestions projection has a non-empty active (the agent asked something you have not answered), the card shows an amber whale tail plus Waiting instead. It outranks Done and Working, also drops the orbit band, and clears as soon as the question is answered. All three states share one whale tail and differ by colour: blue = working, green = done, amber = waiting.

prefers-reduced-motion is respected: with reduced motion enabled, all animation stops.

New in 0.4–0.5 — more than one panel

Five states: Waiting for approval / plan review / your answer (pendingInteraction.kind), all the same amber whale tail and ranked above Done / Working.
Range views: the session view switches between Active / Archived / Subagents; archived rows can be restored in place.
Two lightweight entries: collapsed badge (attention count) and the sidebar “More” menu — reach the panel without opening it. The session-header corner seat belongs to ui-sidebar-right’s panel button, so this plugin no longer contends for it.
Bottom activity bar: appears only when sessions are running or waiting, click to open.
Batch actions: Select mode → Archive selected / Pin selected / Copy IDs; running sessions use stop-and-archive.
Native sidebar row actions: the row “…” menu gains Open in terminal / Copy title / Copy working directory / Download log, and the row hover gets a terminal button. Both read the same action catalog (SESSION_ACTION_DEFS) as the panel.
Stop and archive: running sessions are no longer just disabled; the dialog lists the running turn / subagents / jobs / schedules and confirms with stopActivity (stopping is irreversible).
Right-sidebar dock: pick “Recent Activity” in the right sidebar guide to dock the list.
/heat command: type /heat to open the panel.

Look and motion

Every surface is built from host theme tokens plus color-mix — no hard-coded colors — so light and dark themes work automatically:

--color-blue-500             /* heat color (blue, falls back to #3b82f6) */
--dsw-alias-bg-base          /* opaque card background (hides the orbit band) */
--dsw-specific-menu          /* glass surface: host translucent menu fill (light #f8f9fa94 / dark #43454a73) */
--dsw-menu-backdrop-filter   /* background blur: blur(40px) saturate(150%) */
--dsw-alias-label-primary    /* primary text */
--dsw-alias-label-secondary  /* secondary text */
--dsw-alias-border-l1        /* separators, tracks and glass hairlines */
--dsw-alias-state-success-primary /* the green "Done" mark */
--ds-ease-in-out             /* shared easing curve */

Three layers:

Transparency — cards, badges, the count picker and the filter underline use a translucent fill (color-mix(..., 70%, bg-base)) over the panel background, with a 1px top highlight and a hairline gradient border.
Frosting — the panel paints no background gradient of its own; the glass sits directly on the host's base colour. Hovering a card fades in a backdrop-filter layer; hover cards use the host's --dsw-menu-backdrop-filter.
Gradients — mini meters, selected states, the running orbit band and the heat bar are gradients.

Heat uses just three bands — light grey → deep grey → bright blue (HEAT_TONES): light grey for cold/stale/recent, deep grey for active, bright blue for warm/blazing. The bar keeps its band colour for the full height and only brightens toward the top (the same tone mixed with white, heatBarSurface), with a 1px inner highlight and a hairline glass edge (heatBarShadow) — so it reads as a lit glass rod, and the lower half no longer dissolves into the card. The grey steps use the neutral label tokens, which read as light grey in light themes and dark grey in dark themes — no per-theme colours.

Motion (all of it stops under prefers-reduced-motion: reduce):

Transitions — the list fades in when the view, filter or count changes, with a min(index, 8) × 20 ms stagger; the filter underline grows with scaleX; segmented controls cross-fade their fill.
Hover — cards lift 1px with a soft outer glow while the frosted layer fades in; pressing settles them back. Meta chips get a tinted capsule, and heat bars/meters glow a little brighter. There is no one-shot sheen any more.
Hover cards — 170 ms pop-in and a 130 ms reverse pop-out (the direction follows the up/down flip); the timing donut rotates into place and the timeline segments grow in sequence.
Sidebar — the title dot is a radial gradient with a soft glow and grows a 3px halo when its row is hovered; the entry ring uses a conic-gradient and brightens on hover.

Performance trade-off: static cards never run backdrop-filter (a 50-row list stays smooth) — only the hovered card and the popover are truly frosted. The list fades at its edges with gradient masks instead of mask, so the frosted children are not broken.

Install

This plugin is installed as a local directory or a GitHub repository; it is not published to npm (private: true).

Option 1 — GitHub (recommended)

# inside your DSH profile directory
cd ~/.dsh/profiles/<your-profile>
pnpm add github:MarkTina/dsh-activity-heat#v0.5.3

Pin a tag (#v0.5.3) rather than following main, so an unrelated commit cannot change what you run. To upgrade later, bump the tag and restart DSH.

The repository must be public; a private repo needs a token (https://<token>@github.com/... or an SSH remote) before pnpm add can fetch it.

Then append the package name to dsh.profile.bundles in that profile's package.json:

"@local/activity-heat"

First install normally activates through the host's HMR — if the row does not appear, restart DSH once. Updating an already-installed copy (same path, changed files) always needs a full quit-and-relaunch: a page refresh only reloads the UI, and toggling the plugin does not re-read changed modules.

Desktop profiles are managed by the Electron app. Install through its plugin manager (GitHub / local directory) rather than running pnpm inside ~/.dsh/profiles/desktop — the app owns that directory and will reject or overwrite manual changes.

Option 2 — Local checkout

cd ~/.dsh/profiles/<your-profile>
pnpm add link:/absolute/path/dsh-activity-heat

Add @local/activity-heat to dsh.profile.bundles the same way.

Shortcut

Default Ctrl + Alt + H (Cmd + Alt + H on macOS) switches to the Recent Activity panel. Pressing it again while the panel is open returns you to the conversation you came from — the panel never replaces the session, so the toggle is a round trip.

Change it under Settings → Shortcuts, searching for “Recent Activity”.

You can also type /heat to open the panel (when the host mounts the command service).

Why not Ctrl+H? The host treats Ctrl + C/V/X/Z/Y/Q/H as reserved system keys (browser history etc.), so a bare Ctrl+H default is rejected as reserved. Adding alt uses the web whitelist branch. For the same reason the plugin deliberately declares no Linux profile — on Linux alt+control is treated as reserved and would fail the whole registration. Linux users can bind a key in Settings.

Configuration

Defaults live in cordis.patch.yml. To override, add a row with the same id to your profile's cordis.patch.yml (config is replaced whole, not deep-merged — write every field):

- id: activity-heat
  config:
    hotMinutes: 10        # blazing window (minutes)
    warmMinutes: 60       # warm
    activeMinutes: 360    # active
    recentMinutes: 1440   # recent
    staleDays: 7          # stale (hidden beyond this)
    topCount: 8           # default rows in the panel
    tickSeconds: 60       # heat decay refresh interval
    showRowDots: true     # show the heat dot before a session title
    showHoverHeat: true   # show the heat section in the hover card

Data sources

Everything is read from public host snapshots — no private APIs, nothing written to the session log:

Purpose	Source
Last activity time	`sessions.list.byId[id].updatedAt` (same as the sidebar row trailing time)
Title / draft / subagent / archive	the same `title` `blank` `origin`, plus `workspaces.list.archivedSessionIds`
Workspace membership	`workspaces.list.items[].sessionIds` (same mapping as the host `groupByWorkspace`)
Turns / steps	`sessions.list.projectionsBySession[id].values.sessionStats.turns` / `.steps` — the values the composer activity pill reads
Tokens	`…values.tokenUsage` — billed input (`uncachedInputTokens + cacheReadTokens + cacheWriteTokens`) plus `outputTokens`, the same whole-log total as the composer usage pill
Cache hit rate	`…values.tokenUsage.cacheReadTokens / billed input`, using the host's own rounding (a partial hit never displays as 100%)
Context usage	`…values.contextPressure` — `projectedTokens ?? pressureTokens` over `contextWindow`, the value the composer context meter reads
Session prompt	`…values.contextTimeline` (`initialPrompt` / `lastUser` / `lastReply`) — the status bar does not show prompts
Conversation time & breakdown	`…values.contextTimeline.timing` (`wallMs` / `ttftMs` / `genMs` / `toolsMs` and the generation subdivisions) — the same source and segmentation as the host timing panel
Running state	`sessions.list.byId[id].running`

Excluded: archived sessions, subagent child sessions, blank draft sessions.

Repository layout

The package follows the DSH bundle layout: a Host entry, a Web client entry, one loader patch, and exported display resources.

dsh-activity-heat/
├── index.js            Host half — open-terminal route (launches the system terminal); otherwise mount-only
├── client.js           Web half — ModuleLoader factory, slots, locale
├── design.md           Visual/interaction charter — red lines and deviation log
├── cordis.patch.yml    Bundle patch — inserts the activity-heat row + defaults
├── locale/
│   ├── zh.json         Plugin metadata + UI dictionary (Chinese)
│   └── en.json         Plugin metadata + UI dictionary (English)
├── icon.svg            Plugin icon (exported as ./icon)
├── assets/
│   ├── active.gif      Animated whale-tail badge (inlined into client.js)
│   └── active.png      Static source frame for the GIF
├── test/               Dependency-free self-checks, run with node
├── package.json        Manifest — dsh.bundle.patch, dsh.client, exports, files
├── README.md           This file
├── README.zh.md        Chinese README
├── CHANGELOG.md
└── LICENSE

Visible UI text is routed through the host Client locale service (ctx.locale), falling back to the bundled Chinese dictionary when the service is unavailable. The two locale JSON files carry the same keys; node test/locale.cjs keeps them and the inlined dictionary in sync.

Debugging

Release builds log nothing. To trace the full chain, flip the switch at the top of client.js to true and reload the page:

var ACTIVITY_HEAT_DEBUG = false;   // ← change to true

Self-checks

The repo ships dependency-free logic tests that load the real client.js against a minimal React stand-in — no browser required:

node test/panel.cjs        # registration / sorting / filtering / rendering / click-through
node test/menu.cjs         # right-click menu: actions, confirmation, export probe, capability fallback
node test/shortcut.cjs     # shortcut defaults against host reserved-key rules
node test/boot-timing.cjs  # restart timing: recovery when slots become ready late
node test/locale.cjs       # locale dictionaries and metadata stay in sync
node test/assets.cjs       # inlined running badge matches assets/active.png

npm test runs all six.

Known limitations

Turns, tokens, cache hit rate and context usage read sessionStats, tokenUsage and contextPressure — the same projections as the composer status bar, so the numbers match it exactly. Profiles that only expose contextTimeline fall back to its values; in that case the figures can differ from the status bar.
No Linux default shortcut is declared; Linux users bind one in Settings.
The right-click menu does not delete sessions: the host only supports archiving, and archived sessions can be restored from the sidebar's archived view.
Running sessions' archive item becomes “Stop and archive…”: the dialog lists the running turn / subagents / jobs / schedules and stops them (irreversible) before archiving; the panel re-sorts by heat afterwards.
"Download session log" requires the host to mount dsh-session-log-export; without it the item reports unavailability instead of opening a 404 page.
The host's native sidebar rows expose no right-click event, but they do expose sidebar.workspaces.session.menu.item / .row.action seats; the plugin's terminal / copy / download actions live there, while pin / rename / fork / archive use the host's own items and the central panel keeps the full menu.
updatedAt is the host's last-activity snapshot and does not refresh with tool steps or streaming output; the panel treats running sessions as maximum heat, which does not mean they just received a message.
"Open in…" requires the host to mount dsh-host-open-in-app (/open-in-app/apps and /open-in-app/open); without it, over SSH, or when the directory is gone, the item is disabled or reports a failure. The host probes installed apps once at startup, so newly installed apps appear after a DSH restart.
Terminals list terminal emulators only (Windows Terminal / Terminal / iTerm2 / Warp…); Git Bash is a shell, not a terminal emulator, so it is not shown.
"Open in terminal" is implemented by the plugin's own Host route POST /activity-heat/open-terminal, independent of the host open-in-app catalog; Windows tries Windows Terminal → PowerShell 7 → Windows PowerShell, and reports a failure when none is available.
Waiting-for-approval / plan-review rely on the host pendingInteraction; older hosts expose only userQuestions, so both fall back to “Waiting”.
The right-sidebar dock and /heat require the host to mount sidebarRightTabs / commandUi; otherwise the entry is simply absent.
Batch-archiving a running session uses stopActivity; stopping is not reversible.

License

MIT

dsh-activity-heat

インストール

README