dsh-workspace-running-indicator

A folded Workspace in DeepSeek Harness's sidebar shows what its hidden Sessions are doing: the in-progress loader while one is working, and the green dot once a run finished unviewed — the marks the sidebar already draws on a Session row, restored where folding hid them.

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The problem

A folded Workspace hides every Session row inside it. Its header then shows the same folder glyph whether three turns are running there, a turn just finished with nobody looking, or nothing has happened for a week — while the row's own loader and green dot are still rendered inside the group, with no row left to appear on.

Workspaces
  ◌ app · folded, running          ← this plugin: the header itself is the status
  ● dsh-plugins · finished unviewed
  ▢ ic_decryptor · idle
  ▾ research · expanded
      ● literature review          ← shipped: a Session row's own done dot
      ◌ chip bring-up              ← shipped: its ongoing loader

How it works

The workspace header is shipped UI with no seat:

Owner	What it does
dsh-client-ui-workspace	renders each Workspace header as role="treeitem", keyed data-row-key="workspace:<id>", with the fold state on aria-expanded
sidebar.session.row.leading	a per-Session row cell — no Workspace header has one
sidebar.workspaces	one occupied seat holding the whole browser: grouping, nesting, ordering, search, drag-and-drop and menus

Replacing that seat for one glyph would mean owning the browser. This plugin decorates the single cell it needs instead, from the page side:

Step	What happens
1	read ctx.sessions.list (the live Session catalog) and ctx.workspaces.list (the Workspace projection)
2	a Workspace is working when a member Session reports running, or has a running direct subagent (external children excluded, as the sidebar excludes them); it is finished-unviewed when a member Session's run ended unwatched
3	keep membership the only key: a row reports for its own accounted Sessions, never for a nested Workspace's
4	for each row that is role="treeitem", keyed workspace:<id>, and aria-expanded="false", overlay the matching mark in its 16×20 icon cell: the loader, or the green dot
5	keep it that way through a MutationObserver on the list — folding, expanding, re-mounts, new Workspaces

Why the catalog is the right source. ctx.sessions.list.byId[id].running is the Host's live run state, delivered on every status change; it is exactly the fallback ui-workspace itself applies to a row whose live status has not been loaded yet. A folded group therefore asks the same question its expanded rows already ask. Archived Sessions never count — an archived row carries no live status either.

Working outranks finished. A Workspace with a Session still running shows the loader; the green dot appears once everything it owns is quiet, which is the order the shipped row uses too. A fresh run in the same Session clears the dot again.

The completion dot mirrors the shipped policy. The flag is not in the catalog — it is a process-local projection inside dsh-client-ui-session, reachable only through its React hooks — so completion.ts rebuilds it from the one signal that is: a running transition observed across snapshots. The rule is copied from that package's own status projection: mark when a run goes true → false and the Session is not the one on screen (retainedBy.mainView > 0); clear when it runs again, is opened in the main column, or is archived; seed a first sighting without marking anything. Two consequences are deliberate: a run that had already finished when the plugin mounted raises no reminder, and unfolding does not acknowledge — only opening the Session does, exactly as it clears the Session row's own dot.

Only folded rows carry a mark, and only for their own Sessions. An expanded Workspace's rows each show their loader or dot where the work is, so its header keeps its folder glyph. A nested Workspace never lights its parent: eda_vm (with nothing running) stays a folder while eda_vm/tangram animates — fixed in 0.1.3, where directory containment used to reach the parent. On hover the shipped rule swaps the icon cell for the disclosure chevron, which hides the overlay with it.

Both marks are the shipped artwork. The loader copies StateDot's geometry, its two 1.5s keyframes, the 14px edge, the start-time pinning and the reduced-motion fallback, in --dsw-alias-label-tertiary; the dot is that component's solid done core, 6px in --dsw-alias-state-success-primary. All of it is re-declared under this plugin's own class prefix, with no host component imported. Pinning the phase is why a badge painted mid-run turns in step with the Session rows' loaders instead of starting wherever it happened to mount.

Left: the shipped Session loader. Right: this plugin's Workspace badge. Both are rendered from the built bundle against the shipped sidebar stylesheet.

Requirements

• DeepSeek Harness 0.2.1-rc.3 (desktop or web UI) — the plugin reads markers of that release's sidebar.
• Node.js ≥ 22.17 and pnpm 11 to build from source.

Installation

Build and pack from this repository:

pnpm install
pnpm check                       # typecheck · build · vitest
pnpm run pack                    # -> dist/dsh-workspace-running-indicator-0.2.0.tgz

Then, in the DeepSeek Harness desktop app, open Settings → Plugins, install dist/dsh-workspace-running-indicator-0.2.0.tgz, and restart the app. A bundle added to a running profile is not in the module resolution computed at boot, so its entry fails to import until the next start. The web client additionally needs a page reload after that restart.

Usage

There is nothing to configure: fold a Workspace whose Session is working and its folder glyph becomes the loader. When the run ends the loader becomes the green dot, and the dot stays until you open that Session — or start it again. A nested Workspace reports on its own row and never on its parent's, and an expanded Workspace keeps its folder glyph because its Session rows already show both marks.

What it does not do

• No panel, no settings card, no host routes: the host half is inert and the browser half only paints one cell.
• It does not change the Session rows, the fold watermark, the group ordering or the collapse behaviour.
• The marks are decorative (aria-hidden); the row's accessible name is still the Workspace title, so a screen-reader user gets no "in progress" or "finished" announcement.
• The reminder is derived, not read: it is right about runs this page watched, and silent about runs that finished before it loaded.
• It keys off the row's own identity — role="treeitem", data-row-key, aria-expanded — never a hashed CSS-module class. A future dsh that renames those markers makes the badge stop appearing (harmlessly), not misbehave.

Development

pnpm install
pnpm check          # three tsconfigs, the loader bundle, then vitest

To see the package composed and served without touching the app's profile:

scripts/dev-profile.sh boot 19499     # isolated DSH home under .dev-home/
scripts/dev-profile.sh url 19499      # prints the served bundle URL
scripts/dev-profile.sh remove

Verification

Level	Result
Typecheck: host half, browser half, tests	clean
Built lib/client.js behind a fake window.__ModuleLoader__	registers under the package name, exports apply + inject: ['sessions', 'workspaces'], requests no module
Behaviour in jsdom against the built bundle	27 cases: loader and dot in the icon cell, idle, expanded, Ungrouped, idle parent beside a running nested child, parent-only, both, subagent activity, external-child exclusion, archived Sessions, expand removes the mark, run start/end with the dot replacing the loader, dot cleared by opening the Session, dot restored by folding, fresh run supersedes, per-Workspace acknowledgement, re-mount, disposal, throwing store, unreadable snapshot
Completion policy, directly	8 cases: seeding, unwatched completion, watched completion, later acknowledgement, supersede, archive, pending-vs-ready catalog, late row
Stylesheet	one tag, idempotent install, removable, theme tokens only, copied keyframes, reduced-motion, success token for the dot
Composition in an isolated dsh profile	the Loader row composed and the boot graph served the bundle (/plugins/??dsh-workspace-running-indicator/client.js&rev=… → 200)
Real engine	the built bundle driven in headless Chrome against the shipped row markup and styles: the folded busy row painted exactly one loader (0.1.2), the reported eda_vm / eda_vm/tangram shape left eda_vm untouched (0.1.3), and a real run transition in 0.2.0 reported app=completed/dot=yes run=running/dot=no idle=none/dot=no
Live GUI	confirmed in the desktop app after a restart

The two screenshots are renders of the built bundle against the shipped sidebar stylesheet, not captures of the running app.

Files

src/
├── index.ts              # host half: the Loader row's inert entry point
└── client/
    ├── index.ts          # snapshots → states → observer → paint
    ├── activity.ts       # working ∪ finished-unviewed, per Workspace
    ├── completion.ts     # the shipped completion-reminder policy, mirrored
    ├── rows.ts           # the row/cell decorator and both overlays
    ├── styles.ts         # the rules for loader + dot, and the tag installer
    └── contract.ts       # the two snapshots, read structurally
test/
├── loader.ts             # the built bundle behind a fake module loader
├── fixture.ts            # the shipped row markup, as the plugin may read it
├── bundle.spec.ts        # loader id + exports
├── badge.spec.ts         # the behaviour in jsdom (27 cases)
├── completion.spec.ts    # the reminder policy on its own (8 cases)
└── styles.spec.ts        # install / eviction / tokens
scripts/
├── dev-profile.sh        # isolated dsh home for composition checks
└── install.sh            # pack, then print the install path

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome — the bug form asks which Workspace state you saw, which is usually enough to reproduce. CONTRIBUTING.md has the commands and the map of what each spec pins. Report vulnerabilities through SECURITY.md rather than a public issue. This project follows the Contributor Covenant.

If this saves you from unfolding a Workspace just to see whether anything is happening, a ⭐ star helps other DSH users find it.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.