dsh-classic-tools

Web search for local models and help for small context windows, for
DeepSeek Harness (DSH):

• a Web: on / off chip next to the message box, with web search through your local
  Ollama;
• a tool budget and a scratchpad that keep small-context models (about 49k tokens or
  less) on track;
• two light modes, Ultralight and Advanced thinking.

> Maintenance: best-effort. Issues may go unanswered; forks are welcome.

What it adds

Web chip and /web

• /web on | off | toggle | status, or click the Web chip in the message box. One switch for
  every conversation and every model, applied from the next message. The state is kept in
  /web-toggle.json. Web starts OFF until you turn it on.
• OFF: the web tools are hidden from the model, so it never calls a dead tool.
• ON:
• DSH itself searches the web for each new message of yours (not left to the model's choice) and
  adds the results before the model answers. Greetings, panel passages and questions about
  your own notes ("my notes", "in my Logseq") are not searched.
• Short research rules are added to the system prompt: answer from pages read, mark single-source
  facts "(unconfirmed)", end with a Sources section.
• If the answer has no Sources section, the model is sent back once to add it.
• web_search and web_fetch go through Ollama. web_fetch is replaced by web_read
  (below).

web_read

DSH's web_fetch returns the start of a page. web_read(url, question?, start?) instead cleans the
page (CSS and script leftovers, menus, repeated paragraphs, link targets), saves it in
/cache/web, splits it at headings, ranks the passages against the question with
BM25 (keyword scoring, no model) and returns the best ones, about 4000 characters, in page order.
The model can read other parts with another question or start=p7. A saved page is reused for 24 h
and deleted after 3 days.

Tool budget

On an agent whose context window is 49152 tokens or less (maxContextWindow), each family of tools
stays hidden until your messages mention it, and then stays available for the conversation. Larger
models keep every tool. A family is { id, tools: [tool names], words: "regular expression" }. The
defaults name the tools of the author's other plugins (Zotero, Logseq, documents, memory, tasks...);
tools that are not installed are skipped. Replace them in cordis.patch.yml:

- id: tool-budget
name: 'dsh-classic-tools/tool-budget'
config:
maxContextWindow: 49152
families:
- id: wiki
words: 'wiki|confluence'
tools: [wiki_search, wiki_page]

Scratchpad

For the same small-context models: tools step_done(step, learned), scratch_note(text),
scratch_read(name?). Notes are kept in /scratch// (state.md ledger,
steps/NN.md, notes.md, raw/ = full text of folded outputs, synthese.md = final answer). After
a step_done, long tool outputs (over 600 characters) are folded at the next step to a short head and
a pointer, the same replay-safe way as DSH's own tool-result pruner (the original stays in the
session log). The protocol and the ledger are re-sent with every request, so they survive
compaction. If you ask for the results in a folder ("save it in ~/reports"), a step that says it
wrote elsewhere is refused. Folders untouched for 7 days are removed at startup. Larger models do
not see these tools. The idea follows AgentFold and Context-Folding (2025), MemGPT's core memory and
Anthropic's memory tool.

Ultralight and Advanced thinking

Two agent modes with the smallest possible prompt for small models: no shell, no file changes, web
tools only while the Web chip is ON. Ultralight answers concisely; Advanced thinking asks for
step-by-step reasoning with self-checking (set Effort to "high" in the model menu).

The interface is in English, and in French when DSH's language is French. To translate the chip, add
a table next to en and fr at the top of client.js.

Install

dsh plugin --profile web add github:MathieuPortmann/dsh-classic-tools

Restart the profile afterwards. Requires Node ^22.19.0 || >=24 and DSH >=0.2.0-rc.2 <0.3.0 (see
Compatibility), and an Ollama that can answer web search and fetch requests (see
Permissions). Once the package is on npm,
dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-classic-tools works too.

Configuration

Everything has a default. Edit the rows in cordis.patch.yml (or your profile) to change:

Environment: OLLAMA_HOST (default http://127.0.0.1:11434), DSH_HOME (default ~/.dsh).

How it works

• lib/web-toggle.js (host side) registers the Ollama providers, /web, the web_read tool, the
  research rules and the hooks; its pure rules are in lib/web-rules.js (search query, Sources
  detection, turn state).
• lib/web-page.js is the web_read engine: cleaning, passages, BM25, cache. Pure JavaScript, no
  dependency. It is a port of native code; the port was compared with that code on about 140,000
  generated, fixture and real-page cases (cleaned text, chosen passages and cache files) with
  identical results.
• lib/tool-budget.js, lib/scratchpad.js and lib/scratch-core.js (pure functions) hold the
  small-context helpers.
• client.js (page side) draws the chip. It reads the state from the description of the /web
  command ("... - currently ON"), so showing the state leaves no line in the conversation (a click
  runs /web on or /web off, which shows one short line).
• cordis.patch.yml adds the rows, the two modes and the web provider choice
  (searchProvider: ollama, fetchProvider: ollama). Removing the bundle removes all of it.

Compatibility

Tested with DSH 0.2.0-rc.2 on Node 22.23 (see Verification).

Permissions and external services

Everything the plugin can touch, and what happens when it fails:

Verification

Checked on a disposable profile (DSH_HOME pointing at a temporary folder, so the real profile is
never touched):

npm pack
dsh plugin --profile t add file:$PWD/dsh-classic-tools-0.1.1.tgz   # install
dsh t --port 3095 --no-open                                         # start: rows load, no error
dsh plugin --profile t remove dsh-classic-tools                      # uninstall

npm test runs 23 standalone tests (the web_read engine, the Web rules, the tool budget, the
scratchpad core and the imposed-folder rule) with no DSH installation needed.

Develop

npm test

License

MIT