dsh-desktop-pet

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An optional desktop companion for deepseek-harness. It shows a small animated pet as an ambient status indicator: the pet relaxes when the harness is idle, "thinks" while the model reasons, "works" while tools run, waits when the harness needs input, and celebrates (or frowns) when a turn finishes.

It is not a second chat UI, a task manager, or a full desktop app. It is a status indicator.

• Plugin-first: a normal deepseek-harness plugin — no separately launched daemon, browser, or desktop app.
• Zero network: all assets ship with the plugin; no telemetry, CDN, or remote service.
• Zero added LLM cost: event → state resolution is fully deterministic.
• Runtime-discovered pets: pets under assets/pets/ are discovered at startup, so adding a pet is dropping a folder in — no rebuild.

Installation

The plugin is a Cordis bundle that ships both a host half (the pet window) and a client half (the settings card). dsh plugin add installs it and, because the manifest declares dsh.bundle, adds it to the profile's bundle list automatically.

From npm

dsh plugin --profile <name> add dsh-desktop-pet

From a local directory

Install the plugin directly from its source directory (the profile keeps it as a link: dependency):

dsh plugin --profile <name> add /path/to/dsh-desktop-pet

On Windows, for example:

dsh plugin --profile web add D:/deepseek-pet

You can also run dsh plugin --profile <name> add . from inside the plugin directory.

From a tarball

Pack the plugin, then install the tarball:

npm pack
dsh plugin --profile <name> add /path/to/dsh-desktop-pet-0.1.0.tgz

From a Git repository

dsh plugin --profile <name> add github:sereinmono/dsh-desktop-pet

If the repository does not commit build artifacts, configure a prepare script so dsh plugin add builds the plugin during install.

Run

dsh --profile <name>

If you are running Harness from a source checkout, prefix the commands above with pnpm — i.e. run pnpm dsh plugin ... and pnpm dsh ... from the Harness repository.

The settings card requires Harness to expose the desktop-pet settings namespace (via its WEB_SETTINGS_NAMESPACES allowlist). The pet window itself does not depend on that allowlist.

Enable / disable

Set enabled: false in the plugin's config, or remove the bundle from the profile. The plugin then loads but shows nothing; removing it entirely leaves Harness fully functional.

Adding a pet

Pets are plain folders following a fixed sprite-sheet format. Three common ways to obtain one are covered in the dedicated guide, each with a copy-paste prompt and manual steps:

• hatch-pet — generate a pet with the skill, then drop its output folder into assets/pets/.
• Import an existing folder — copy a folder containing pet.json + spritesheet.webp into assets/pets/.
• Petdex community — download a community pet and copy it in.

See Adding a Pet for the full walkthrough, and the asset format reference for the exact pet.json and sprite-sheet layout.

Supported platforms

Linux per-pixel transparency needs a running compositor (GNOME/KDE ship one by default; lightweight WMs need picom or similar). On Wayland the overlay runs through XWayland.

Configuration

All fields are optional and validated with a Schemastery schema (invalid values fail loudly at load). The user-editable fields (enabled, petScale, petId, hideWhenIdle) are exposed on the Web settings card.

Example:

- insert:
    - id: desktop-pet
      name: dsh-desktop-pet
      config:
        petScale: 1
        petId: text
        idleFrequencySec: 30

Window position is persisted privately under ~/.dsh/desktop-pet/position.json (best-effort; failures are ignored). It does not depend on any Harness storage service.

Developer mode

When the core ctx.commands service is present, the plugin registers a /pet <state> command to simulate states without any LLM:

/pet thinking
/pet working
/pet waiting_for_user
/pet success
/pet error
/pet reset

Valid states: STARTING IDLE THINKING WORKING CODING RUNNING_COMMAND WAITING_FOR_USER SUCCESS ERROR SLEEPING.

Architecture

harness events / lifecycle
        ↓  (the only harness-specific layer)
integration/  HarnessBridge · capability-detection · event-mapping
        ↓  NormalizedEvent
core/         PetStateResolver · PetStateMachine · TaskStateRegistry
        ↓  SemanticState
renderer/     AnimationController · PetWindow
        ↓  finished RGBA frames
renderer/backend/  Win32Backend · X11Backend   (native overlays via koffi)
        ↑
renderer/codex-pet/  PetContract · PetLoader   (pet.json + sprite sheet)

• HarnessBridge is the only module that knows raw harness event names. Everything above it is harness-independent.
• Pet core (core/) is a standalone library: testable with no harness, no window, no network.
• Backends are platform-isolated behind WindowBackend; the renderer never sees Win32 or X11 details.
• Client half (src/client/) is a separate browser bundle registered through the harness module loader; the host and client halves communicate through the settings namespace.

Harness dependencies

Only the Cordis plugin lifecycle and these core services/events are used:

• Plugin entry: apply(ctx, config) + name / inject / Config.
• Lifecycle: ctx.effect(), ctx.on(), ctx.logger(name).
• Activity observation: session/event, agent/status.
• Settings: the desktop-pet settings namespace (host-side), bound by the client card.
• Optional (detected, not required): ctx.agents, ctx.sessions, ctx.approval, ctx.commands.

No non-core plugin is required. If an optional service is absent, the pet degrades gracefully (coarser states, no /pet command).

External dependencies

Peer (type-only, not bundled): @deepseek-ai/cordis.

The client bundle's react and @deepseek-ai/dsh-client-* imports are externalized: they are provided at runtime by the harness module loader, so the plugin does not ship them as runtime dependencies (they appear only as dev dependencies for type checking and bundling).

Explicitly avoided: Electron, Tauri, WebView2/webview, GLFW/SDL/raylib, game engines, GPU/OpenGL, Docker, databases, Redis, any external server, browser automation.

Event → state mapping

SUCCESS / ERROR / STARTING are transient (default 2s) then return to IDLE. Concurrent agents are tracked per session/task and folded by priority WAITING_FOR_USER > ERROR > WORKING > THINKING > SUCCESS > IDLE.

Extending

• Adding a pet — see Adding a Pet; no code change is required.
• Adding an animation state — extend SemanticState in src/core/types.ts, its resolver mapping in src/core/PetStateResolver.ts, and its renderer pose in SEMANTIC_TO_CODEX.
• Adding a window backend — implement WindowBackend (src/renderer/backend/WindowBackend.ts) and register it in src/renderer/backend/selectBackend.ts.

Testing

npm test               # vitest unit tests (core + loader + integration)
npm run typecheck      # tsc --noEmit (host half)
npm run typecheck:client # tsc -p tsconfig.client.json --noEmit (client half)
npm run build          # tsdown bundle (host + client)
npm run gen:assets     # regenerate the bundled text pet

The pet core is tested without a harness or a display. The native overlay backends require a real desktop session and are not exercised by the headless test suite — they need manual verification on Windows/Linux.

Publishing

Publishing to npm is automated with GitHub Actions via npm Trusted Publishing (OIDC): GitHub mints an id token and npm publishes on its behalf, so the workflow needs no NODE_AUTH_TOKEN secret. A v* tag pushed to master triggers npm ci → typecheck → test → build → npm publish --provenance.

One-time setup on npm (do this before the first tag push):

1. The package must already exist on npm. Publish 0.1.0 once with a manual token (npm publish --access public) — Trusted Publishing is configured per package, so an npmjs package page must exist first.
2. On the npmjs package page, enable Trusted Publishing and authorize this repository: owner sereinmono, repository dsh-desktop-pet. Pin the workflow publish.yml and branch master if the form offers it.

Release locally — bump the version, tag, and push the tag:

npm version patch   # or minor / major; creates vX.Y.Z tag
git push origin master --tags

The workflow runs only when the tag's commit is on master; tags on other branches are skipped. A manual backup entry is available at Actions → Publish → Run workflow (the tag must still be on master).

Known limitations

• Linux transparency requires a compositor; on Wayland the pet runs as an XWayland client (no native wlr-layer-shell).
• macOS is not implemented.
• The bundled placeholder is the text test pet only — original SVG-drawn text, with no OpenAI/Codex/DeepSeek character artwork or trademarks.
• Native window rendering (frameless/transparent/topmost/drag) has not been exercised by automated CI and needs a manual check on a real desktop.

License

MIT.