dsh-weixin-reader

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A WeChat Official Account article reader for DeepSeek Harness. It fetches a mp.weixin.qq.com article and parses the body into clean Markdown for the model.

Why

Harness's built-in web_fetch often fails on WeChat articles: the site returns an environment-check page, the body is buried under heavy inline styles and nested containers, and images load lazily through data-src. This plugin handles those cases and exposes a single narrow tool.

What it provides

One model-facing tool, weixin_read:

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
url	string	yes	Article link, e.g. https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/xxxxxxxx
maxChars	integer	no	Maximum body characters before truncation; falls back to the plugin config
saveToFile	boolean	no	Write the full body to a workspace file; falls back to the plugin config

The canonical result carries title, author, publishedAt, sourceUrl, wordCount, imageCount, markdown, truncated, savedTo, and bodyChars. What the model sees is rendered Markdown: the title, a metadata line, then the body.

The plugin also registers a system-prompt section telling the model to prefer weixin_read over web_fetch for WeChat articles.

Install

dsh plugin --profile web add github:jack1545/dsh-weixin-reader

Running from a source checkout, use pnpm dsh instead of dsh. Restart the Harness process to load the new layer.

Verify the layer without starting:

dsh --profile web --dump-config   # should contain a "# == dsh-weixin-reader" layer

Uninstall:

dsh plugin --profile web remove dsh-weixin-reader

Configuration

Every tunable lives in the config block of cordis.patch.yml, and can be overridden by id in a profile's own cordis.patch.yml:

Key	Default	Description
timeoutMs	30000	Fetch timeout in milliseconds
maxChars	60000	Body character limit; longer bodies are truncated and flagged
saveToFile	false	Whether to save the full body by default
saveDir	""	Save directory; empty writes to <workspace>/weixin-articles/
systemPromptOrder	10120	Prompt-section order; later sits closer to generation
userAgent	""	Overrides the default desktop browser UA

Two design decisions

No subprocess for fetching. The Harness file sandbox blocks Node from reading a child process's pipes; execFileSync and piped spawn both fail with EPERM, so external fetchers such as url-md.exe cannot be used from inside a plugin. This plugin uses the host fetch instead, which inherits the process's existing proxy settings and is unaffected by that limit. Redirecting a child's stdout to a file descriptor rather than a pipe would work around it, but that adds temporary files and cleanup responsibility for no benefit here.

Zero external imports. A profile's node_modules does not provide @deepseek-ai/* runtime dependencies, so the plugin uses only Node built-ins and ctx, and does not use defineTool. The cost is manual argument validation, which is implemented and whose failure messages match the declared schema.

Limitations

• mp.weixin.qq.com only. Other hosts are rejected, so it cannot be repurposed as a general fetcher.
• Fails loudly rather than degrading. An environment-check page, a deleted or restricted article, and an unrecognizable page structure each raise an explicit error instead of silently retrying or returning an empty body.
• The body is a parse result, not raw HTML. Rich layouts (custom cards, interactive components) degrade to text or image links; images stay as Markdown image syntax and are not downloaded.
• No bulk fetching. Keep the request rate low and respect WeChat's platform terms; this plugin is for personal reading and research.

Layout

dsh-weixin-reader/
├── package.json         # declares dsh.bundle
├── cordis.patch.yml     # the layer applied on install
├── index.js             # plugin entry: registers weixin_read and the prompt section
└── lib/parser.js        # zero-dependency parser, testable outside Harness

lib/parser.js works standalone:

import { fetchArticle, formatArticle } from './lib/parser.js';

const article = await fetchArticle('https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/xxxxxxxx');
console.log(article.title, article.author, article.wordCount);
console.log(formatArticle(article));

Verification

Measured locally on 2026-09-21:

• weixin_read fetched and parsed a real article: title, author, and publication time correct; 5049 characters and 16 images; clean Markdown structure.
• Argument validation rejects, as intended: a missing url, a non-object argument, an empty string, a non-positive-integer maxChars, and an undeclared extra key.
• A non-mp.weixin.qq.com host is rejected.
• maxChars truncation applies and is flagged; saveToFile writes the correct path and full Markdown content.
• The canonical result matches output.schema exactly: all required keys present, no undeclared keys.

License

MIT. This plugin is not affiliated with Tencent or WeChat, and is intended for personal reading and research.