dsh-thought-buddy is a pure client-side plugin for the DeepSeek Harness Web GUI. While the model is working, the status pill that reads Deep diving... grows a tiny Grok-style robot avatar: it blinks, swaps expressions with a springy morph, wanders its gaze, and gently bobs — all drawn live as SVG via requestAnimationFrame, with zero runtime dependencies. Every time the avatar switches expression, the status text rewrites itself with a typewriter effect (deleting character by character, then typing out the next word).

The avatar animation is ported from nasawz/GrokBot (a pure Flutter CustomPaint widget) to the web: all 25 expressions × 2 eyes × 48-point eye rings, 18 body shapes, and 39 states with their expression/blink cadences are preserved.

Features

Feature	Description
GrokBot avatar	thinking-state expression pool [8,16,14,17,5] cycles automatically; springy morph between expressions; 320 ms blinks (random 3.5–7 s interval); spherical head-turn projection + wandering gaze; gentle 1.7 s breathing bob
Expression-synced typewriter	on every expression switch, the status text leaves Deep diving... via a typewriter effect (delete character by character, pause, then type out the next word) cycling through 55 candidates (Accomplishing…Working), e.g. Reticulating...; React re-renders never overwrite it (the text fiber's children string never changes, so React bails out)
Emoji mode	fallback mode that cycles an emoji list (default 🤿 🫧 🌊 🐙 🔍 🧠 💭) with a pop-in on every switch
Theme aware	follows prefers-color-scheme: light #5b7fe5/#fffdf7, dark #6689ea/#181a15 (matching the DSH theme)
Reduced motion	under prefers-reduced-motion: reduce, the bob and head-turn sway are disabled; expression changes and blinks remain
Self-cleaning	the animation stops as soon as the status pill leaves the DOM; inserted nodes survive React re-renders and are re-asserted on the next mutation if ever removed

Install

Copy the block below and paste it to your DSH agent (the assistant in this web GUI). The agent performs the install and verification for you — no manual npm or profile editing needed:

Install the @dsh-plugin/dsh-thought-buddy plugin into the profile I specify (or ask me if I didn't name one). The npm package name is `@dsh-plugin/dsh-thought-buddy`; use the GitHub source `github:dsh-plugins/dsh-thought-buddy`, or `file:<path>` / `link:<path>` for local development.

Steps:
1. Add the plugin dependency: `dsh plugin --profile <PROFILE> add @dsh-plugin/dsh-thought-buddy` (or the equivalent plugin-manager command for my profile).
2. Verify `node_modules/@dsh-plugin/dsh-thought-buddy` resolves and holds a built `lib/` directory (at least `lib/index.js` and `lib/client.js`). The runtime has no dependencies; building the TypeScript sources needs the `typescript` devDependency (`npm ci`/`npm install` once). If the artifacts are missing, run `npm run build` in the plugin directory and re-add.
3. Make sure the profile manifest's `dsh.profile.bundles` includes `@dsh-plugin/dsh-thought-buddy` — the bundle patch (`cordis.patch.yml`) inserts the plugin row automatically at boot.
4. Do not start the profile — install and verify only, then report what you changed.

Then restart dsh web, refresh the page, and send the model a message — the buddy appears in front of Deep diving.... All runtime options are set via localStorage (see below); there is no settings page.

Install from a local checkout (link:)

For local development, wire the plugin into a web profile via a link: dependency (example: C:\Users\Administrator\.dsh\profiles\web):

// package.json (profile)
"dependencies": { "@dsh-plugin/dsh-thought-buddy": "link:C:/path/to/dsh-thought-buddy" },
"dsh": { "profile": { "bundles": [ /* ... */, "@dsh-plugin/dsh-thought-buddy" ] } }

1. Build the artifacts: npm run build → compiles TypeScript and produces lib/client.js + lib/index.js
2. In the profile, run pnpm install (works offline)
3. Restart dsh web — the client-module manifest is composed at boot, so a new bundle needs a restart
4. Refresh the page and send the model a message

Configuration (localStorage, applied on reload)

Key	Default	Description
dsh-thought-buddy.enabled	1	0 disables the plugin
dsh-thought-buddy.mode	avatar	emoji switches to emoji cycling
dsh-thought-buddy.size	18	avatar size in px (8–64)
dsh-thought-buddy.emojis	🤿 🫧 🌊 🐙 🔍 🧠 💭	space/comma-separated emoji list (emoji mode)

// console example
localStorage.setItem('dsh-thought-buddy.mode', 'emoji')
localStorage.setItem('dsh-thought-buddy.size', '22')
location.reload()

Development

dsh-thought-buddy/
├── ref/GrokBot/            # reference project (git-ignored, read-only)
├── src/
│   ├── index.ts            # host half (no-op mount row)
│   └── client/
│       ├── data.ts         # generated typed data: 25 expressions × 2 eyes × 48 points, 18 shapes, 39 states
│       └── index.ts        # client engine: SVG avatar + typewriter + observer + apply()
├── scripts/
│   ├── gen-data-lib.mjs    # Dart parsing + data.ts rendering helpers
│   ├── gen-data.mjs        # regenerates data.ts from ref/GrokBot's Dart sources
│   └── build.mjs           # assembles lib/client.js (__ModuleLoader__ contract) from tsc output
├── test/verify.mjs         # browserless tests against the built bundle (SVG, pacing, typewriter)
├── tsconfig.json           # host-half compile: src/index.ts → lib/ (node ESM)
├── tsconfig.client.json    # client-half compile: src/client/*.ts → .build/client/ (plain scripts)
├── demo/                   # local preview (node demo/server.mjs → 4173)
└── cordis.patch.yml        # bundle patch: inserts the thought-buddy row

npm install           # once — installs the typescript devDependency
npm run gen           # refresh data (after upstream GrokBot data changes)
npm run typecheck     # type-check both halves (no emit)
npm run build         # compile TS → lib/ + .build/client/, then assemble lib/client.js
npm run verify        # full browserless verification
node demo/server.mjs 4173   # preview http://127.0.0.1:4173/demo/demo.html (run npm run build first)

The client half is written as TypeScript "plain scripts" (no import/export, so the types and data stay in one global scope). tsc compiles them to plain JS in .build/client/, and scripts/build.mjs concatenates the two files into the window.__ModuleLoader__ factory — the same loader contract as before. data.ts must be evaluated before index.ts (build order is fixed).

Architecture

• Host half: provides only the cordis bundle mount row (cordis.patch.yml inserts thought-buddy), so client-modules discovers the dsh.client declaration and exports["./client"], serving the browser half at /plugins/@dsh-plugin/dsh-thought-buddy/client.js.
• Client half: apply(ctx) registers a MutationObserver watching [data-conversation-scroll] [role="status"] pills whose text contains "diving"; the avatar/typewriter mount in front of the text and live with the pill's DOM lifecycle.
• Animation: a per-frame port of Flutter's _GrokBotState._onTick — critically-damped spring expression morphing (ω=7, 1/120 substeps), thinking-pool expression switching, 320 ms blink curve, spherical head-turn projection (asin/cos depth culling), wandering gaze; polygon coordinates are written to the SVG points attribute every frame.
• Typewriter: a timer-driven state machine over the pill's text node. React never touches the node because the text fiber's children string is always "Deep diving..." (bail-out), exactly like the injected avatar node.

⚠️ Two different injects: the bundle's exported exports.inject is the cordis service dependency (this plugin only uses ctx.effect, so it must be an empty array — putting package names there makes the fiber wait forever for a service that does not exist and boot fails with pending (waiting for service: ...)); package.json's dsh.client.inject is the client module dependency declaration (this plugin needs none, so it is omitted).

Links

• Repository: https://github.com/dsh-plugins/dsh-thought-buddy
• npm: https://www.npmjs.com/package/@dsh-plugin/dsh-thought-buddy

License

BSD-3-Clause. The eye-ring geometry, body shapes, and state cadences derive from nasawz/GrokBot (BSD-3-Clause, Copyright (c) 2026 nasawz), credited in the LICENSE file.