dsh-legal-workbench

A right-sidebar workbench for DeepSeek Harness. It turns your Obsidian notes into a working surface inside the chat window: look up SOPs, keep a glossary, record meetings with live transcription and annotations, and search everything.

All files stay on your computer. No account, no telemetry. See PRIVACY.md.

中文说明见 README.zh.md。

Install

Requires a DSH installation (0.2.0 or newer — check with dsh --version) and network access (the package comes from npm).

Pick the command that matches your DSH:

DSH Desktop app

dsh plugin --profile desktop add dsh-legal-workbench

Self-hosted DSH Web (on your server)

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-legal-workbench

Using a custom profile name? Replace desktop / web with yours (see ~/.dsh/profiles/).

Then restart DSH and click the workbench icon next to the session title, or press ⌥W.

No Obsidian required, no API keys, no account.

Fully verified on macOS only. Other platforms install and run, but the two actions that call system commands ("open in Obsidian", "open console") may need a config tweak.

First run

Click the workbench icon next to the session title (or press ⌥W). The first time, it asks for one thing: the full path of a folder holding your Markdown notes (an Obsidian vault, or any folder — the plugin only touches .md files). Fill it in and press save — that's it.

Nothing else is required. The optional extras (transcription, usage badges, Pkulaw points) stay dormant until you provide your own credentials.

What you get

Card	What it does	Needs
SOP	Browse your SOP folder as a tree, read and edit notes in place	a vault
Glossary	One row per term, edit inline, written back to a note	a vault
Recordings	Record, transcribe live, highlight and annotate the transcript, play back	a vault; transcription needs a Volcengine key
Search	Full-text search across notes, transcripts and annotations	a vault
Email	Draft emails from your own rule library	optional: your own skill folder
Usage badge	DeepSeek balance and remaining speech hours	optional: your own keys

Where things live

• Your notes and recordings: inside your vault (folders are configurable on the first screen).
• Plugin configuration: ~/.dsh-workbench/config.json.
• Optional credentials: ~/.dsh-workbench/asr.json (mode 600, never in this repo).

Keyboard

• ⌥W — open or close the workbench wherever you are
• Esc — close it

Notes

• The right sidebar is per-session in DSH. If the workbench cannot dock there, it opens as an overlay instead of failing silently.
• Transcription is off unless you configure a Volcengine key; recording and playback work without it.

Troubleshooting

• The panel opens but stays empty: click the refresh button at the top right of the panel. This is a known first-load issue in 1.1.0; one refresh fixes it.
• Clicking the icon does nothing: some sessions have no right sidebar yet, so the workbench opens as an overlay instead (shortcut ⌥W).
• It asks you to configure something: it just needs the folder holding your Markdown notes. Fill it in once.

Known limitations

• Images in notes are not rendered. They appear as a filename label (e.g. 图片 photo.png). Everything else in a note (headings, lists, bold, code, tables as text, wikilinks) is shown.
• Markdown support is deliberately minimal: no HTML, no embedded PDFs, no mermaid rendering.
• Annotations anchor to the first line of a multi-line selection.
• Highlight colour is fixed (yellow); the storage supports more, the UI does not expose it yet.
• The reimbursement card only checks that a template exists; it does not parse it yet.
• Transcribing an imported audio file shows no progress bar.
• The workbench reads and writes the vault directly. Edits made in Obsidian appear after a refresh, and edits made here appear in Obsidian immediately (same files).
• DSH gives each session its own right sidebar; if the workbench cannot dock there it opens as an overlay instead of failing silently.

License

MIT