dsh-pi-tui

A third-party TUI mode for DeepSeek Harness (dsh), built on a vendored fork of pi-tui.

Run dsh --profile pi-tui for a terminal UI instead of the browser GUI (dsh --profile web) or one-shot mode (dsh --profile headless).

Status: working. The TUI covers the main session loop — input → session events, approvals, commands, session switching and full-text search — plus presets, skills, model/settings menus, and slash commands. Rendering and input routing are verified by headless tests (@xterm/headless) with no TTY or model connection needed.

Screenshot

Layout

packages/pi-tui/    Vendored @moonshot-ai/pi-tui fork (kimi-code commit b6144f9, v0.84.2),
                    rescoped to @xmoon76/pi-tui. The five local fixes from the fork
                    (CJK wrap guard, width clamps, overwide truncation, negative-width
                    guards, per-frame processed-line reuse) are preserved; native/
                    prebuilds are deliberately not vendored (graceful fallback).
packages/dsh-pi-tui/   The dsh bundle: @xmoon76/dsh-pi-tui (the only published
                    package). cordis.patch.yml inserts the startup row
                    (dsh --profile pi-tui flags) and the runner row (TUI glue).
                    tsdown bundles the pi-tui fork into dist/, so the tarball
                    is self-contained.

Prerequisites

• A DeepSeek Harness installation with profiles support (dsh on your PATH).
• Node >= 22.19 (^22.19.0 || >=24, same range as dsh). Running from source needs Node with native TypeScript support (>= 23.6) or the tsx ESM hook (node --import tsx/esm, how dsh's own source launch works).
• pnpm only when installing from source.

Install

dsh plugin runs pnpm inside the target profile's directory, so the usual pnpm verbs (add, remove, update, list) all work.

Option A — from the npm registry (recommended)

The published package is self-contained: the vendored pi-tui fork is bundled into its build output, so @xmoon76/dsh-pi-tui is the only package you install (@xmoon76/pi-tui stays private in this repo, like kimi-code keeps @moonshot-ai/pi-tui private):

# install the bundle into the pi-tui profile (creates the profile if needed)
dsh plugin --profile pi-tui -- add @xmoon76/dsh-pi-tui

# run it
dsh --profile pi-tui

Any dependency whose manifest declares dsh.bundle joins the profile's layer stack automatically — no manual cordis.patch.yml wiring.

Option B — from source

Build artifacts are not committed (dist/ for both packages is gitignored and the package exports point at the built files), so build before installing from a clone:

git clone https://github.com/XMoon/dsh-pi-tui
cd dsh-pi-tui
pnpm install
pnpm build        # pi-tui tsdown (dist/) + dsh-pi-tui tsdown (dist/, bundles pi-tui)
dsh plugin --profile pi-tui -- add @xmoon76/dsh-pi-tui@file:$PWD/packages/dsh-pi-tui

Verify the install

dsh plugin --profile pi-tui -- list          # @xmoon76/dsh-pi-tui present
dsh --profile pi-tui                         # TUI starts instead of the web GUI

Update / uninstall

# registry installs:
dsh plugin --profile pi-tui -- update @xmoon76/dsh-pi-tui
# or rebuild + re-add for file: installs:
pnpm build && dsh plugin --profile pi-tui -- add @xmoon76/dsh-pi-tui@file:$PWD/packages/dsh-pi-tui

dsh plugin --profile pi-tui -- remove @xmoon76/dsh-pi-tui

Development

pnpm install
pnpm build        # pi-tui tsdown (dist/) + tui-app tsc (lib/)
pnpm test         # pi-tui's own suite (node --test) + tui-app headless tests
pnpm typecheck

Tests drive the UI through @xterm/headless (see packages/dsh-pi-tui/test/virtual-terminal.ts), so rendering and input routing are verified without a TTY or a model connection.

Slash commands (selection)

• /sessions [query] — open the session picker: search-as-you-type over session ids, titles, and workspaces, rows grouped by workspace with live filtered/total counts, and titles loaded in the background as they are read. Enter switches to the selected session.
• /search <query> — full-text search over persisted session logs, then switch to a hit.
• /title [title] — show or set the current session's title (titles appear in the /sessions picker).
• /preset, /model, /settings, /export, /fork, /subagents — see dsh --profile pi-tui's command autocomplete (/ + Tab).

Verified in the P0 spike

• Vendored pi-tui: 960/960 tests pass under Node 26 (node --test).
• TuiApp renders, accepts editor input, and handles Ctrl+C on a headless xterm.
• The whole import chain (pi-tui, tui-app, @deepseek-ai/dsh-cmdline, commander) loads under the tsx ESM hook — the dsh source-launch contract.
• Native modifier-key addons are optional: on Linux the loader returns undefined without attempting a load, and the non-TTY stdin path is guarded.

License

MIT. packages/pi-tui retains its upstream MIT license and authorship (Copyright (c) 2025 Mario Zechner; Moonshot AI fork).