DSH Desktop

A Windows desktop app wrapper around the DeepSeek Harness (DSH) web UI: double-click to launch, lives in the system tray, no browser required.

Built with WinForms + WebView2. No Electron, no bundled Chromium.

---

Why not Electron

Approach	Processes	Notes
Electron	6–8 + ~150 MB of bundled Chromium	Heaviest
This project (WebView2)	1 exe + 5–6 child processes	Reuses the system WebView2 runtime

WebView2 is a shared runtime that ships with Windows — it is not the Edge browser: the process is named msedgewebview2.exe, and msedge.exe is never started. It is included with Windows 11; Windows 10 may need the Evergreen Runtime.

Features

• Straight into DSH — opens directly into the DSH UI, not a splash or button page
• Close does not quit — the × button minimizes to the system tray and the backend keeps running
• Tray interaction — left click restores the window, right click opens a menu
• Single instance — launching again focuses the existing window instead of opening a second one
• --hidden — starts silently into the tray, ideal for auto-start on login
• No third-party dependencies — only the bundled .NET Framework 4.x and the WebView2 runtime
• Small — the exe is ~400 KB (including the embedded fallback page and icon, excluding WebView2 DLLs)
• Configurable — URL, port and log path all come from a JSON file
• Self-healing — reloads when DSH restarts with a new token, rebuilds the engine if it crashes, restarts itself if the UI hangs

Self-healing

Every time DSH restarts (for example after the monitoring platform triggers an automatic recovery) it issues a new access token, while the frontend already loaded in the page still holds the old one. That is the root cause of "the desktop window goes black after a while and the buttons stop responding". This app defends against it on four levels:

Mechanism	Trigger	Action
Token following	the token in logFile differs from the one the page was loaded with	reload with the new token
Crash recovery	WebView2 renderer crashes / browser process exits	reload, or rebuild the engine if needed
UI watchdog	the UI thread stops responding	process-level self-restart
Orphan cleanup	a msedgewebview2.exe whose host is already dead is found at startup	terminate it so it cannot fight over the user data folder

Token following requires logFile to point at the DSH log file. Without it the app falls back to manual refresh (the "Refresh" button in the toolbar). If a navigation itself fails, it is retried once after 6 seconds.

Compared with the official desktop app

The official repository already ships a desktop app: apps/desktop, an Electron shell that bundles its own Python / Node.js / pnpm distributions and defaults to port 19387. (The CLI refuses to launch the desktop profile by hand — it is owned by the Electron app.)

	Official Desktop (apps/desktop)	This project
Stack	Electron (bundled Chromium)	WinForms + system WebView2
Runtime	Bundles its own Python / Node.js / pnpm	Reuses your existing DSH and system runtime
Size	Large (full runtime + installer)	exe ~400 KB (excluding WebView2 DLLs)
Port	Ships its own service, default 19387	Attaches to your existing DSH (default 3080)
Installation	Installer (releases require code signing)	Portable, just a folder
Build tooling	electron-builder + signing certificate	The bundled csc.exe, no SDK needed
Native folder picker	Electron folder dialog	Reuses DSH's own picker
Maintained by	Official	Third party

Which one should you use

• Want something that works out of the box, feature-complete, officially maintained → use the official apps/desktop.
• Already running DSH (say, registered as a Windows service) and just want a lightweight window → use this project. It does not duplicate the runtime; it is only a shell.
• This project does not take over your service: DSH is still provided by your own service or process, so it will not conflict with an existing deployment.

Requirements

Purpose	Requirement
Run	Windows 10/11; .NET Framework 4.6+; WebView2 runtime
Build	The csc.exe bundled with Windows (no .NET SDK and no Visual Studio required)
Icon generation (optional)	Chrome or Edge (to rasterize SVG into PNG)

Check whether the WebView2 runtime is installed:

Test-Path 'HKLM:\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\EdgeUpdate\Clients\{F3017226-FE2A-4295-8BDF-00C3A9A7E4C5}'

Quick start

1. Build

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\build.ps1

The build script will:

1. download the Microsoft.Web.WebView2 SDK from nuget.org (if not already present locally)
2. place the managed DLLs and the native WebView2Loader.dll into dist\
3. compile src\DesktopApp.cs with the csc.exe bundled with Windows

Artifacts land in dist\:

dist\
├─ DeepSeekHarness.exe
├─ Microsoft.Web.WebView2.Core.dll
├─ Microsoft.Web.WebView2.WinForms.dll
├─ WebView2Loader.dll
├─ DeepSeekHarness.ico        <- generated by tools\make-icon.ps1 (optional)
└─ dsh-launcher.json          <- your config; do not commit it to git

2. Configure

Copy config\dsh-launcher.example.json to dist\dsh-launcher.json and edit it:

{
  "mainUrl": "http://127.0.0.1:3080/",
  "dshWebUrl": "",
  "monitorUrl": "",
  "chromePath": "",
  "logFile": "",
  "port": 3080,
  "minimizeToTray": true,
  "followToken": true,
  "tokenPollMs": 3000,
  "watchdogMs": 8000,
  "autoCleanOrphans": true
}

Field	Description
mainUrl	Page loaded when the window opens. Defaults to the local DSH
dshWebUrl	Target of the tray item "Open web page". Hidden when empty
monitorUrl	Target of the tray item "Open monitoring platform". Hidden when empty
chromePath	Browser used by "Open in Chrome". Auto-detected when empty
logFile	Path to the DSH log file. Used to extract the token-bearing URL, giving login-free startup and token following. Skipped when empty
port	Local DSH port, default 3080
minimizeToTray	When false, the × button quits directly
followToken	Whether to reload automatically when the token changes, default true
tokenPollMs	Token polling interval in milliseconds, default 3000
watchdogMs	Watchdog interval in milliseconds, default 8000
autoCleanOrphans	Whether to clean up orphan WebView2 processes at startup, default true

3. Run

Double-click dist\DeepSeekHarness.exe.

To start it on login, put a shortcut in %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\ and append --hidden to the target so it goes straight to the tray.

How login-free startup works

Every time DSH Web starts it prints a URL carrying a token:

dsh web: http://127.0.0.1:3080/?token=<randomly generated on each start>

Opening that URL plants a persistent signed cookie (the signing key lives in $DSH_HOME/.credentials.yaml and survives restarts).

So as long as logFile points at that log, the app loads the latest token URL automatically, with no manual login; the cookie is persisted under %LOCALAPPDATA%\DeepSeekHarness\webview2.

Tray menu

Show main window
────────────────────────
Open web page            <- dshWebUrl (hidden when empty)
Open monitoring platform <- monitorUrl (hidden when empty)
────────────────────────
Back to local DSH
Open current page in Chrome
────────────────────────
Quit

Generating the icon

The repository contains no brand icons (to avoid trademark issues). Generate one from your local DSH installation with the script:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File .\tools\make-icon.ps1 -Source "<path to your favicon.svg>"

Pipeline: SVG -> headless Chrome rasterization -> multi-size ICO (16/24/32/48/64/128/256, all BMP/DIB entries).

You can also pass a PNG directly: -Source "logo.png".

Repository layout

.
├─ build.ps1                    one-step build
├─ CHANGELOG.md                 changelog
├─ README.md                    English (this file)
├─ README.zh-CN.md              Chinese
├─ config\
│  └─ dsh-launcher.example.json config template
├─ src\
│  ├─ DesktopApp.cs             main app: WebView2 + tray + single instance + self-healing
│  ├─ Launcher.cs               alternative: minimal launcher panel (opens in your browser)
│  ├─ home.html                 fallback page shown when the local service is down
│  ├─ logo.png                  icon embedded into the fallback page
│  └─ MakeIcon.cs               multi-size ICO generator
├─ tools\
│  └─ make-icon.ps1             icon pipeline (SVG -> PNG -> ICO)
└─ docs\
   └─ BUILD.md                  full build walkthrough and pitfalls (Chinese)

Known limitations

• The exe is not a single process: the DSH UI is HTML/CSS/JS, so any exe that displays it needs a browser engine. This project reuses the system WebView2, which is lighter than Electron, but it still spawns 5–6 child processes.
• logFile depends on the log: if DSH was started in the foreground and the URL was only printed to the console, the token in the log will be stale and the app falls back to cookie authentication. When logFile is empty there is no token following, so you must click "Refresh" after DSH restarts.
• 8.3 short paths affect the process name: when launched through a short path the process is named DEEPSE~1; a normal double-click gives DeepSeekHarness. Match processes by command line, case-insensitively.

More implementation details and pitfalls: docs/BUILD.md (Chinese).

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md (Chinese).

Author

Jason

• Blog: https://blog.20240606.xyz
• GitHub: https://github.com/666su

License

MIT