dsh-ponytail

A thin Ponytail adapter for DeepSeek Harness 0.2.0-rc.2. It uses Ponytail v4.10.0 instructions and all upstream skills unchanged, with isolated session modes and a native persistent default.

Installation

Use Node ^22.19.0 || >=24.0.0 and DSH 0.2.0-rc.2.

Built package

Download the .tgz asset from a GitHub Release, or build it below, and install it into the Web profile:

dsh plugin --profile web add /absolute/path/to/dsh-ponytail-0.1.0-rc.1.tgz
dsh --profile web

Tarball installation requires no source checkout or package build scripts. It may download runtime dependencies from your configured package registry.

Build from source

Clone this repository and run:

npm ci
npm run typecheck
npm test
npm pack

npm ci and npm pack run the same self-contained prepare build. No sibling upstream checkout is required. The package is marked private to disable npm registry publication; Git installs and tarball distribution still work.

Commands

Command	Effect
/ponytail	Show effective mode, session override, and persistent default
/ponytail lite, full, ultra, or off	Set only this session's mode
/ponytail default	Clear this session's override and follow the default
/ponytail default lite, full, ultra, or off	Save the shared default durably; overrides stay intact
/ponytail status	Same read-only status query
/ponytail-review [notes]	Run the upstream one-shot review skill
/ponytail-audit [notes]	Run the upstream whole-repository audit skill
/ponytail-debt [notes]	Run the upstream shortcut-ledger skill
/ponytail-gain [notes]	Show the upstream measured-impact scoreboard
/ponytail-help [notes]	Show the upstream command/skill reference

stop ponytail and normal mode also disable the receiving session when sent as standalone messages. A phrase inside an ordinary request does not switch mode. Help/review/audit/debt/gain are one-shot tasks and do not change the persistent mode.

The initial default is full. DSH stores subsequent default changes in its ponytail storage domain under the selected host's storage backend. Runtime overrides disappear on disposal/restart. Separate DSH homes have separate persistent defaults; processes sharing one backend should follow that backend's supported ownership rules.

Native in-process spawn/fork children take their owning parent's effective mode at child creation. Later parent changes leave the child alone. A child's /ponytail default clears its inherited snapshot. Children launched through external processes use that host's own default; parent override transport is not implemented.

Compatibility

Host API peers target DSH 0.2.0-rc.2 and Cordis ~4.0.4. The official Web/base profile supplies agents, system prompts, skills, and native storage. Custom profiles must provide those services and a durable storage-domain backend; commands activate when the native commands registry is available. Mount one adapter per storage-domain facility. The native domain does not broadcast default changes between processes.

An explicit DSH complete-prompt plugin supersedes ordinary prompt sections, including this one. Skill invocation metadata uses DSH's native filesystem parser; upstream asset bytes remain unchanged.

Runtime and package checks cover Linux with Node 22. Windows/macOS and live external model providers are untested. Rerun the checks before changing the supported DSH version or peer ranges.

Upstream fidelity

vendor/ponytail/ is generated from a pinned upstream Git commit. It contains the exact instruction/config modules, skill tree, and license, plus a SHA256 manifest and CommonJS package scope. Runtime startup validates it before calling the upstream renderer. No instruction text is maintained in TypeScript.

npm run check:assets
npm run sync:upstream

These optional upstream-maintenance commands expect the pinned Ponytail checkout at e3ba2aa6f1e6f0bc4d69eb09c9f0d0a93af56156 in ../upstream/ponytail. Updating upstream deliberately changes the pin in scripts/sync-upstream.mjs, regenerates assets, and reruns drift/runtime/package checks. Normal builds and Git installs use only the included vendor files. The main Ponytail skill remains user-invocable but is hidden from model invocation because its rules are already in the system prompt; the other policies use DSH's native upstream-metadata parser.

Development

npm run typecheck
npm test
npm run benchmark

Tests use real DSH services and agent-loop sessions with a deterministic model transport; no API credentials are required. The benchmark prints its JSON report to stdout.

For package acceptance checks, install the official DSH CLI in the ignored runtime directory:

npm install --prefix .runtime --no-audit --no-fund @deepseek-ai/dsh@0.2.0-rc.2
npm run verify:package

The verifier checks isolated source preparation and pack lifecycles, archive layout and upstream hashes, a clean consumer install, missing/corrupt asset rejection, official Web profile installation and startup, session isolation, commands, skills, authenticated HTTP access, and incompatible peer rejection. It uses disposable profiles and a deterministic model transport. Reports, logs, caches, and tarballs are written under .runtime/ and excluded from Git and package contents.

Acknowledgements

This adapter bundles unmodified Ponytail assets by DietrichGebert and contributors, and uses native APIs provided by DeepSeek Harness. Development research drew on WODE25500's PR #743 for upstream instruction reuse, redtidev1918's PR #792 for packaging and native command integration, MengYuil's adapter for per-session mode state and the skill-command flow, Wenaixi's adapter for lifecycle mapping and DSH API adaptation, and gongyijie85's adapter for filesystem skill discovery.

License

The adapter is licensed under MIT. Bundled Ponytail assets retain their upstream license and copyright notice.