dsh-better-sidebar

A service-oriented sidebar framework, and a complete workbench out of the box





A dual workbench (right sidebar + bottom panel) that opens its ctx.betterSidebar service to every plugin —
register new sidebar pages and file viewers via registerTab / registerFileViewer.

🌏 中文 · English

✨ Features

• 🗂️ File Workbench: file explorer (lazy-loading tree; symlinks show their target kind — directory links expand, dangling links flagged) + CodeMirror editor; inline preview for images / Markdown / HTML / PDF / Office
• 🌐 Embedded Browser: multiple web tabs with back / forward / refresh; content runs in a sandboxed iframe; external links are routed by protocol by default — HTTP opens in the sidebar, HTTPS goes to the system browser (both adjustable in settings)
• 💻 Real Terminal: xterm.js + node-pty real shell, reconnect with transcript replay; optionally injects terminal_* tools for the model
• 🌿 Git Panel: real diff + VSCode-style diff tabs, history, right-click to stage / commit / revert
• 🧩 Background Tasks: agent topology + background tasks (exit codes / live output / force-kill)
• 🪟 Dual Workbench: right sidebar + bottom panel; drag tabs to split / merge panes (cross-panel), mobile auto-merges into a full-width drawer
• 🔁 Session Isolation: layout / tabs / panels persisted per session, stale state auto-purged
• ⚙️ Declarative Settings: per-item toggles in the "Side Cards" settings section, secondary settings via the gear dialog
• ⚡ On-demand Loading: only ~325KB core at startup; heavy deps (terminal / editor) load on demand (design)
• 🌏 i18n: UI text follows DSH's language (zh / en) with live switching

🔌 Core principle: service-first — the 7 built-in tabs + 6 viewers register through the same ctx.betterSidebar API as third-party plugins, with fully equal capabilities; anything the ecosystem can provide better is delegated to ecosystem plugins. See the "🔌 Service" section below and the external plugin guide.

🆕 Recent Updates

v0.12.3

✨ New features

• 🎨 Skin compatibility (token-driven): fully consumes DSH design tokens and follows the dsh-web-ui skin center's 10 skins automatically; terminal/editor surfaces fall back to opaque backgrounds under transparent/translucent-glass token values so text never scrolls over the skin art (#110, fixes #106 #105 #90 #60, also #52 #57 #92)
• 🗂️ Unified path handling: UNC / symlink classification (directory symlinks expandable, broken links highlighted) + HTML-route platform guards (#134, #65 #67 #43 #79 #115)
• 🖥️ Configurable terminal shell: custom shell setting with Windows pwsh auto-probe (#95)
• 📝 Editor languages: C# / Kotlin / Swift syntax highlighting (#120)
• 🧭 Settings nav icon: settings-page navigation icon and layout polish (#114)
• ➕ Recommended-plugin catalog: added dsh-git-remotes — Git Remotes tab (branches/upstream/ahead-behind, fetch with prune, ff-only pull, confirm-before-push; does not replace the built-in stage/commit tab) (#91); and dsh-video-preview — inline video preview (.mp4/.webm/.mov/.mkv/.avi etc.) backed by a /video host route with HTTP Range (206) scrubbing, not capped by the 20MB mediaLimit (#126)

🐛 Fixes

• 🔧 xterm migration: deprecated xterm dependency migrated to @xterm/xterm (Closes #122, #128)
• 📝 Markdown editor: selection-to-conversation popup restored (#24)
• 🐛 node-pty load failure no longer crashes the server (#140): the host half now lazy-loads node-pty — when it is missing the plugin still mounts, the terminal shows a repair banner (copyable command + Retry button), and agent terminal tools are skipped
• 🧪 Test engineering: unit spec split (#141) + flaky smoke cleanup fix

🚀 Engineering

• npm publishing wired to GitHub Releases (Trusted Publishing, provenance-attached tarballs); tagging a release publishes automatically (#148)

v0.12.2

• 📐 Position compat mode: new "Position compatibility mode" setting: reserves top space for the native Windows title bar (top-right) so the sidebar buttons and content sit below it (off by default); the shift distance is customizable in the gear popup (0–120px)
• 🔌 Service API base: complete type exports + version/features capability detection, state subscription (getSnapshot/subscribeState), tab badge, onOpen/onActivate/onClose lifecycle callbacks, updateTab/activateTab/openFile, targeted open, meta persisted across reloads, plugin-owned settings (pluginToggles/render), external-link claim (urlTarget)
• ➕ Add Plugins: recommended plugin catalog in settings + one-click copy install command; built-in Office preview moved to the recommended plugin
• 🖱️ Tab-bar scroll: mouse-wheel horizontal scrolling on the tab bar
• 🐛 Fixes: remote access 403 (trust fence now uses trustedHosts), sidebar crash #31, Windows HTML-preview drive-path

v0.12.1

• 🔌 Service API base: complete type exports + version/features capability detection, state subscription (getSnapshot/subscribeState), tab badge, onOpen/onActivate/onClose lifecycle callbacks, updateTab/activateTab/openFile, targeted open, meta persisted across reloads, plugin-owned settings (pluginToggles/render)
• ➕ Add Plugins: recommended plugin catalog in settings + one-click copy install command; built-in Office preview moved to the recommended plugin
• 🖱️ Tab-bar scroll: mouse-wheel horizontal scrolling on the tab bar
• 🐛 Fixes: remote access 403 (trust fence now uses trustedHosts), sidebar crash #31, Windows HTML-preview drive-path

📝 Note: the 0.12.0 final could not be reused (npm reported the version as already published), so the public release became 0.12.1 — both carry identical content.

v0.12.0

• 🔌 Service API base: complete type exports + version/features capability detection, state subscription, tab badges, lifecycle callbacks, targeted open, meta persisted across reloads, plugin-owned settings
• ➕ Add Plugins: recommended plugin catalog in settings + one-click copy install command; built-in Office preview moved to the recommended plugin
• 🖱️ Tab-bar scroll: mouse-wheel horizontal scrolling on the tab bar
• 🐛 Fixes: remote access 403 (trust fence now uses trustedHosts), sidebar crash #31, Windows HTML-preview drive-path

🚀 Installation

Prerequisites: DSH installed (dsh web boots), Node.js ≥ 20, pnpm ≥ 10.

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-better-sidebar@latest

Then hard-refresh the browser (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+R) to see the sidebar (DSH hot-reloads client changes; only host-half updates need a restart).

Updating

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-better-sidebar@latest

or bump the version in ~/.dsh/profiles/web/package.json (e.g. "^0.12.3") and run pnpm install. Then hard-refresh the browser (Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+R) — client changes do not need a DSH restart.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause & fix
Ignored build scripts	pnpm 11 blocked build scripts. Run pnpm approve-builds --all in the profile directory (~/.dsh/profiles/web).
minimum release age / version < 24h	The release is younger than 24 hours. Wait, or re-run once (pnpm auto-adds minimumReleaseAgeExclude).
"profile directory not found"	Run dsh web once so it initializes ~/.dsh/profiles/web.
Two sidebars on the page	Double-mount: ~/.dsh/profiles/web/cordis.patch.yml still has the old hand-written - insert: ... better-sidebar ... line — delete it.
Terminal fails on Windows	node-pty relies on prebuilt binaries; if none match your Node version, install a build toolchain (VS Build Tools). Mainstream Node versions are usually covered.
Terminal shows "node-pty failed to load"	The node-pty install is missing or broken (e.g. pnpm skipped its build script). The terminal banner shows a repair command — copy it into a terminal/cmd on the DSH machine and run it (in ~/.dsh/profiles/web: pnpm approve-builds --all && pnpm rebuild node-pty), then restart DSH and click Retry. The plugin and DSH core share the same node-pty@^1.1.0, so the repair restores both.
dsh: command not found	Install DSH first, or run npx -y --package @deepseek-ai/dsh dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-better-sidebar@latest.

Install from source / develop (optional — alternative to the npm flow)

To debug local changes or track the dev branch, point the dependency at a local clone and build it yourself:

1. git clone https://github.com/omdsh-dev/DSH-better-sidebar.git ~/Code/DSH-better-sidebar
   cd ~/Code/DSH-better-sidebar && pnpm install && pnpm build
2. In ~/.dsh/profiles/web/package.json dependencies write "dsh-better-sidebar": "link:<absolute path of the clone>"
3. Append this mount line to ~/.dsh/profiles/web/cordis.patch.yml:
   - insert:
       - id: better-sidebar
         name: 'dsh-better-sidebar'
4. Run pnpm install in ~/.dsh/profiles/web
5. Restart DSH and hard-refresh

Update: git pull && pnpm install && pnpm build → just hard-refresh the browser (client changes hot-reload; only host-half changes need a DSH restart). To switch back to the npm channel, restore "dsh-better-sidebar": "^0.12.3" and re-run pnpm install.

Install via plugin-registry (optional — use either this or the main flow)

Prerequisite: DSH with plugin-registry integrated (dsh registry available). Enabling both channels double-mounts (the Node half loads twice, the page gets two sidebars).

git clone https://github.com/omdsh-dev/DSH-better-sidebar.git && cd DSH-better-sidebar
pnpm install && pnpm build
node scripts/package-registry.mjs   # assemble the registry/ staging (manifest + artifacts + README, not committed)
dsh registry install ./registry     # install (disabled by default)
dsh registry enable dsh-external/dsh-better-sidebar

Update: git pull && pnpm install && pnpm build → node scripts/package-registry.mjs → dsh registry uninstall/install/enable. Remove the other channel's mount before switching.

⌨️ Keyboard Shortcuts

Action	Keys
Save edits	Ctrl/Cmd + S
Git commit	Ctrl + Enter
Close tab	Middle mouse button
Split / merge panes	Drag tab to pane edge / middle
Reference file to input	Hover the @file button at end of line
Copy file path	Right-click row → copy relative/absolute path

🔌 Service: register tabs & file viewers

Since v0.4.0 the plugin exposes the ctx.betterSidebar service — other plugins can register sidebar pages and file viewers (the 7 built-in tabs + 6 viewers register through the same service):

import type {} from 'dsh-better-sidebar'  // triggers the ctx.betterSidebar type merge
export const inject = ['betterSidebar']
export function apply(ctx: Context) {
  ctx.effect(() => ctx.betterSidebar.registerTab({
    id: 'my-plugin:db', title: 'Database', component: ({ scope }) => <DbView sessionId={scope.sessionId} />,
  }))
}

v0.12.1+ base capabilities (complete type exports, capability detection, state subscription, tab badge, lifecycle callbacks, targeted open, plugin-owned settings, etc.) — see the integration docs below.

Full integration docs:

• AGENTS.md — the in-repo integration doc (full fields, matching algorithm, HMR pitfalls, declarative settings, version detection);
• docs/external-plugin-guide.md — the external-plugin guide (with a complete minimal example).

➕ Add Plugins (recommended plugin catalog)

The dashed cards at the end of the "Sidebar content" / "File viewers" grids in the "Side Cards" settings section open the Add tab plugins / Add preview plugins modals: each declares its open extension point, offers a "Browse more plugins on GitHub" button (the GitHub topic dsh-better-sidebar), and lists the recommended catalog (name / repo / description / install script) — "Open" jumps to the repo, "Copy" writes the install command to the clipboard.

Curating a new plugin: append a PluginEntry to src/client/plugins-tabs.ts (tab registrations) or src/client/plugins-viewers.ts (file-previewer registrations) and tag your repo with the dsh-better-sidebar topic; data integrity is guarded by tests/plugin-list.spec.ts.

🛠️ Development & Build

pnpm install      # @deepseek-ai/* resolved from npm (^0.1.0-rc.6, published) — no token needed
pnpm typecheck    # tsc --noEmit
pnpm build        # → lib/index.js + lib/invariant.js + lib/client.js + lib/client-registry.js + lib/types
pnpm test         # vitest (includes manifest consistency guard; build first)
pnpm watch        # tsdown --watch

Architecture: a single npm package with host/client halves — host (src/index.ts): /sidebar/api/* JSON API, /sidebar/file media route, /sidebar/html preview route, /sidebar/ws/terminal WebSocket (fs / git / pty / preview, all session-scoped with a trust fence); client (src/client/index.tsx): portal sidebar + views + interception; state persisted per session in localStorage. Organized per DSH official conventions (no default export, dual client bundles); no dependency on npm / checkout at runtime (@deepseek-ai/* provided by the web profile).

🔐 Security

• Routes protected by a Host-header trust fence (same as /api); fs.write is atomic; media/preview routes only serve files inside the session cwd; git only shells out to the CLI and never sets identity
• HTML preview and browser tab content render in opaque-origin sandboxed iframes (no allow-same-origin/allow-top-navigation, no-referrer, all permission policies disabled); the /sidebar/html route carries a CSP sandbox + size/path bounds; the address bar rejects javascript:/data:/file: and local addresses like localhost
• The UI shows the sandbox status live (red warning when off) and can temporarily unlock the current page; the settings page can disable the sandbox per feature (disabled by default, with a warning) — when off, content shares the origin with the UI; only recommended for fully trusted content

⚠️ Known Limitations

• Git has no push/pull/fetch; no file watcher (manual refresh); tool inline file-open buttons cannot be intercepted
• Dragging a terminal tab to another pane remounts it (shell restarts)
• Office-suite preview (.docx/.xlsx/.pptx) moved to the recommended office plugin (see the "Add plugins" modals in settings); without it these files fall through to the code/download fallbacks
• Browser sandbox has no login state / third-party cookies are restricted; some sites need popup login; sites that refuse embedding via X-Frame-Options/frame-ancestors (e.g. arxiv.org) show a reason panel (with "Open in browser"); in-iframe navigation does not enter the back stack
• HTML preview renders the saved file (not unsaved drafts)
• No bottom panel on mobile (<768px): on narrow screens its tabs merge into the right sidebar once (after migrating back to desktop they stay in the right sidebar); the desktop bottom panel is only available on wide viewports; auto-open terminal on first bottom-panel expand does not trigger on mobile

🖥️ Platform Support

Windows / Linux / macOS (macOS validated daily; the rest covered by unit tests); node-pty prefers prebuilt binaries, otherwise a build toolchain is required (Windows VS Build Tools / Linux make+g+++python3 / macOS Xcode CLT).

🔗 Friends

• dsh-tianshu-tui: an interactive terminal UI plugin for DeepSeek Harness (its rendering core evolved from the self-developed harness agent Tianshu-Tui), adding TDD and evidence-gate workflows on top of the official harness
• dsh-TUI: a Claude Code-style fullscreen interactive TUI plugin — pixel-whale top bar, live working-status row, streaming thought expansion, double-Esc rollback, context progress bar + TPS meter; one-command npm install
• dshfind Plugin Market: a third-party plugin marketplace — a listing of public repos under the GitHub topic dsh-plugin, with stars, contributors and growth data synced daily
• DeepSeek Harness Desktop: a modern desktop client for the DeepSeek Harness ecosystem — start and manage a local Harness service without configuring Node.js or running commands; official site