dsh-teaching-mode

A switchable teaching mode for DeepSeek Harness: one mini-topic at a time → quiz right after → topic wrap-up quiz → section review sheet.

• Off by default — it never interferes with ordinary conversations.
• Turn it on with /teaching on, off with /teaching off.
• State is kept per session; one session studies one course.

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Why

Asking an AI to teach you inside a long chat usually fails in three ways:

1. It dumps everything at once — thousands of words in one reply, nothing retained.
2. It never tests you — you cannot tell what you actually understood.
3. Nothing is kept — the material lives in the chat log and is painful to revisit weeks later.

This plugin turns "explain → quiz → file it away" into a protocol that is injected into every model request, so the model keeps a teacher's rhythm instead of lecturing.

The teaching loop

Section 8.5
 ├─ Topic A
 │   ├─ mini-topic A1 ── explained → 1 card question
 │   ├─ mini-topic A2 ── explained → 1 card question
 │   └─ Topic A wrap-up ── 2 more card questions
 └─ Topic B … same
Section 8.5 done → "8.5 review sheet" (concepts + exercises + answers)
Chapter done    → merged into a chapter-level review

Hard rules

• One topic at a time; quiz immediately after explaining.
• Never dump a whole topic at once — split it into mini-topics.
• Each mini-topic → 1 card question; each finished topic → 2 more.
• Each finished section → a review sheet, written to disk (not only in chat).
• Explain why, not just what: every symbol and rule gets its meaning and reason.
• Heading counts must match content counts; label a table as a summary when it is not the textbook's own wording.
• Homework: answers and walkthroughs only, no follow-up quizzes.

Prep gate (v0.9.0) — before any teaching starts the model must settle four things with you: textbook table of contents / missing pages, past papers, chapter route, exam info. Until then it asks instead of teaching; a lesson that has already started only gets a softer reminder.

Generating material one chapter at a time (when no textbook is at hand)

1. Ask for the subject and material first; if material exists, check its table of contents / page completeness.
2. No material → give the outline (chapter → section → topic) and wait for approval.
3. Then generate the first chapter only — never the whole book; generated text is labelled as generated.
4. Finish chapter 1, then ask whether to generate chapter 2. Never run ahead.

Install

Published on npm: dsh-teaching-mode

npm install dsh-teaching-mode

In the desktop app the CLI is not allowed to manage the desktop profile (the app owns it), so install from inside the app: open a DSH session and have it run plugin_manager → install_bundle with target dsh-teaching-mode — the package name; DSH resolves it from npm.

From a local checkout instead: clone the repo, then use install_bundle with target file:<absolute-path-to-the-cloned-folder>.

git clone https://github.com/wbj19552259912-netizen/dsh-teaching-mode.git

Restart DSH (or reload the profile) afterwards.

UI

Two surfaces, both native DSH UI:

Where	What
Settings → Teaching	Plugin summary, a "default on for new sessions" switch, the teaching loop, hard rules and command list
Conversation "Teaching" tab	Sits next to "Chain of thought" / "Request context"; the loop and rules always at hand

The settings switch is a local preference (browser storage) meaning "start new sessions in teaching mode". Toggling a specific session still uses /teaching on / /teaching off.

Notes are written to disk automatically

You do not have to ask. When a section is finished, its notes and review sheet are written to files:

Content	Filename
Section notes	第X章-<section>-讲义.md
Section review sheet	第X章-<section>-复习资料.md (concepts + exercises + answers)
Chapter review	第X章-总复习.md
Mistake book	错题本.md

Filenames follow the student's language on purpose: the course, its folders and its notes are Chinese, so the files stay sortable next to the rest of the course material.

Where: <this session's working directory>/projects/<subject>/03-产出/ — inside that conversation's own folder, not left in the chat log. The path is derived from Session.header.cwd plus the subject set with /teaching setup; /teaching status shows the current notes directory.

Continuing a course in a new session (v0.9.3)

A course often outlives one conversation. The plugin therefore does not key a course on the session, but on which course it is:

• Subject names are normalised first (高等数学（同济第七版上册） and 高等数学（同济第七版） are the same course).
• When the notes directory of a new session does not exist, the plugin reuses the existing projects/<subject>/03-产出 instead of creating an empty one, and says so.
• Sessions of the same course are merged (progress, sections, debts, mistakes) every time the plugin starts.
• A session with teaching mode still off sees a short hint listing the courses already in this workspace (progress, sections taught, open debts) so it can continue instead of starting from scratch.
• /teaching courses lists every course with its sessions; /teaching link <8-hex-prefix> copies a course's fields into the current session.

Commands

Progress can be recorded at three granularities: section (小节), topic/section step (知识点 / 小知识点) and chapter (章).

Command	Effect
/teaching on / off	Enable / disable teaching mode for this session
/teaching status	Show subject, material, progress, debts
/teaching setup <subject> | <material>	Set subject and textbook; re-derives the notes directory
/teaching progress <text>	Update current progress, e.g. /teaching progress 第8章 8.5 数据有多长
/teaching section <name>	Set the current section (小节)
/teaching next-section <name> / /teaching learn-section <name>	Set / mark the next section
/teaching finish-section <name>	Mark a section as taught
/teaching debt <text> / /teaching debts	Record a gap to fill later / list debts and mistakes
/teaching resolve <#|keyword> [| note] / /teaching drop <#|keyword> [| reason]	Close / void a debt
/teaching mistakes [n]	Mistake totals, by-layer breakdown, latest entries
/teaching review [topic]	Build a focused-review block from open debts and recent mistakes
/teaching done <text> / /teaching gen <chapter>	Mark something finished / record that a chapter was generated
/teaching learn <chapter> / /teaching next <chapter>	Mark a chapter studied / set the next chapter
/teaching exam <date> | <types> | <scope> | <papers>	Record exam info, e.g. 2026-12-31 | MC20+SA30+Calc50 | Ch1-5 | 5 past papers
/teaching index	Rebuild 课程索引.md in the notes directory
/teaching finish-chapter <chapter> | <next> [--force]	Close a chapter; blocked unless 第X章-总复习.md exists (--force skips)
/teaching courses	List every course in the store and its sessions
/teaching link <8-hex-prefix>	Continue another session's course in this session
/teaching repair	Heal state (stale current/next section, chapter string split)
/teaching prune [-f]	Remove empty session records (preview unless -f)
/teaching reset	Clear this session's teaching state

Model tools (the model calls these itself)

Tool	Purpose
teaching_setup	Record subject and material; derives the notes directory and re-arms the prep gate when the subject changes
teaching_prepare	Prep gate (v0.9.0): pass confirmed: true once contents / past papers / chapter route / exam info are settled
teaching_update	Record progress, sections, chapters, debts; debt_resolved / debt_dropped close or void a debt
teaching_exam	Record exam date, question types, scope, past papers
teaching_mistake	Record a mistake including which layer was wrong; appended to 错题本.md
teaching_note_path	Show the notes directory

Config

Edit it in DSH settings: Settings → Plugins → Plugin config → dsh-teaching-mode (the form is generated from the plugin schema; saving applies immediately).

Key	Default	Meaning
defaultOn	false	Start new sessions in teaching mode. A session you explicitly turned /teaching off stays off
statePath	empty	State file path; empty means $DSH_HOME/teaching-mode/state.json
rulesText	empty	Replace the whole teaching protocol (advanced)
extraRules	empty	Extra requirements appended to the protocol

Or write the profile's cordis.patch.yml directly:

- id: dsh-teaching-mode
  config:
    defaultOn: true

Protocol size (why it does not get slower)

After a course has taught 5+ sections the plugin injects a compact rule set (~1.1k characters) instead of the full protocol (~4.4k), and the state header only shows the latest items. A typical turn injects ~1.8k characters instead of ~4.8k. The notes index is rebuilt only when the file list actually changed, so tool calls no longer scan the directory every time.

State

Default $DSH_HOME/teaching-mode/state.json, bucketed by session id (keys are session-<uuid>; the display id is the first 8 hex characters after the prefix):

{
  "version": 1,
  "sessions": {
    "session-xxxx": {
      "on": true,
      "subject": "汇编语言",
      "dataDir": "D:\\…\\projects\\汇编语言学习\\03-产出",
      "chapter": "第8章 8.5 数据有多长",
      "learnedSections": ["8.4 寻址方式总表"],
      "debts": [{ "id": 1, "text": "第3章源程序结构", "status": "open" }],
      "prep": "confirmed",
      "updatedAt": "2026-11-03T00:00:00.000Z"
    }
  }
}

Change the location with statePath or the environment variable TEACHING_MODE_STATE.

Uninstall

dsh plugin --profile desktop remove dsh-teaching-mode

The plugin is pure injection plus a state file, it leaves no hooks behind; delete $DSH_HOME/teaching-mode/ to remove the state as well.

Development

node --check lib/index.js     # syntax
node tests/test.mjs           # 154 contract tests (local mock host, no model calls, no cost)
node tests/client-test.mjs    # 25 client tests
node tests/default-on-test.mjs # 16 default-on tests
node tests/rules-check.mjs    # 29 protocol checks

MIT