DeepSeek Harness Local Deployment & Desktop Shortcut Setup

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Purpose of this repository: create a Windows desktop shortcut with the DeepSeek icon for a locally deployed DeepSeek Harness (dsh). Double-clicking the shortcut launches the dsh Web UI (at http://127.0.0.1:3080 by default, automatically opened in your default browser once the service is ready).

File Listing

├── Install_DSH.bat            # One-click installer script (single file, icon embedded)
├── assets/
│   ├── deepseek_logo.ico      # DeepSeek icon (16/24/32/48/64/128/256)
│   └── icon_preview.png       # Icon preview
├── LICENSE                    
├── README.md                  # This document
└── README_zh.md               # Chinese version

Result

• A "DeepSeek Harness" shortcut is created on the desktop, using the DeepSeek whale logo as its icon;
• Double-clicking it runs the following in sequence: navigate to D:\DSH\deepseek-harness → invoke pnpm dsh web;
• The Web UI starts at http://127.0.0.1:3080 and opens the browser automatically; the console window stays open so you can watch the service logs in real time.

Prerequisites

The configuration I run on my machine:

Dependency	Version	Notes
Windows	10 / 11	The shortcut is created via WScript.Shell
Node.js	24.11.0	Required for installing dsh from source
npm	11.6.1	Required for installing dsh from source
Git	2.54.0	For cloning the source repository

Step 1: Deploy dsh to a Local Path

The directory layout is planned as follows:

D:\
└── DSH\
    ├── pnpm\              # pnpm runtime (the directory containing pnpm.cmd)
    ├── .pnpm-store\       # pnpm store (migrated from D:\.pnpm-store; see Step 2)
    ├── deepseek-harness\  # dsh source code
    ├── Install_DSH.bat
    └── deepseek_logo.ico

1. Install pnpm

Install pnpm into a dedicated directory (D:\DSH\pnpm in this walkthrough): set the npm global install prefix first, then run the installation:

# 1. Create the directory
mkdir D:\DSH\pnpm

# 2. Install pnpm into that directory (via npm)
npm install -g pnpm --prefix D:\DSH\pnpm

# 3. Verify the installation
D:\DSH\pnpm\pnpm.cmd --version

If a version number is printed, the installation succeeded.

On Windows, the global executable (pnpm.cmd) is generated directly in the prefix directory, i.e., D:\DSH\pnpm\pnpm.cmd. Add that directory (D:\DSH\pnpm) to the PATH under Environment Variables → System Variables.

2. Clone the Source Code and Build

cd D:\DSH
git clone https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness.git
pnpm install
pnpm run build

pnpm run build produces the library files and frontend assets required at runtime. It is a mandatory prerequisite for launching the Web UI and must not be skipped. This step takes a considerable amount of time, so please be patient.

3. Verify the Launch

pnpm dsh web

By default, the Web UI starts at http://127.0.0.1:3080 and opens the browser automatically. Once you have confirmed that the page loads correctly, stop the service and proceed to the next step.

Step 2: Migrate the pnpm-store to D:\DSH (Optional)

After the first pnpm install, a .pnpm-store folder appears at the root of drive D:. This is pnpm's content-addressable store: pnpm reuses dependency files via hard links, and hard links require the store and the project's node_modules to reside on the same volume. Therefore, when the project is on drive D:, pnpm automatically creates the store at the root of D:.

A note on "links": the relationship between node_modules and the store is not symbolic links, but hard links. Moving a folder within the same volume does not break hard links, so there is no need to repair any links one by one; what actually needs to be changed during the migration is the store-dir setting in the pnpm configuration. The order of operations must be "update the config first, then move the folder" — if you move the folder directly, pnpm will recreate an empty store at the old path on its next run and re-download all dependencies, leaving the migrated folder as orphaned, redundant data.

Migration steps (close all running pnpm / dsh processes before proceeding):

# 1. Check the current store location (prints D:\.pnpm-store by default)
pnpm store path

# 2. Point the store to the new location (written to the user-level global config)
pnpm config set store-dir D:\DSH\.pnpm-store

# 3. Move the folder (moving within the same volume is instantaneous, and hard links remain valid)
move D:\.pnpm-store D:\DSH\.pnpm-store

# 4. Verify that the config has taken effect; it should print D:\DSH\.pnpm-store\v11 (v11 is my version)
pnpm store path

Additional notes:

• The store-dir setting is written to the user-level config file (%USERPROFILE%.npmrc) and applies to all projects. It is independent of where pnpm itself is installed, and reinstalling pnpm will not lose this setting;
• It is not recommended to place the store inside D:\DSH\pnpm (the pnpm program directory): mixing the program and its data creates a risk of accidental deletion during future upgrades or migrations. Keeping D:\DSH\.pnpm-store as a separate directory is the safer choice.

Step 3: Create the Desktop Shortcut

Download Install_DSH.bat from this repository and double-click to run it. The script automatically does two things:

1. Extracts the embedded DeepSeek icon (Base64-encoded) to D:\DSH\deepseek_logo.ico;

2. Creates "DeepSeek Harness.lnk" on the desktop via WScript.Shell, with the following properties:

   Property	Value
   Target	powershell.exe -NoExit -Command Set-Location D:\DSH\deepseek-harness; D:\DSH\pnpm\pnpm.cmd dsh web
   Start in	D:\DSH\deepseek-harness
   Icon	D:\DSH\deepseek_logo.ico

When you see two lines of [OK] output, the installation is complete.

Windows may show a SmartScreen prompt for the unsigned script; simply confirm to proceed. The final result is shown in the image on the right.

License

The scripts in this repository are released under the MIT License. The upstream DeepSeek Harness repository is also MIT-licensed. All rights to the DeepSeek icon belong to DeepSeek; it is used here solely for personal desktop convenience — please verify DeepSeek's trademark usage policy yourself before any public redistribution.

References

• DeepSeek Harness official repository: https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness