Blog · Review
First impressions: 37k stars, V4 Pro pricing, and "make your own wrench"
August 14, 2026 · dshbase
DeepSeek Harness shipped right after DeepSeek V4 Pro — and within days hit ~37,000 GitHub stars. It's polarizing: some call it the future, others too raw.
The numbers that matter
- ~37k GitHub stars within days.
- V4 Pro cache pricing rose 12x at cache-hit prices.
- Peak output reached ~¥27, pricing started at 3x across the board.
The four modes
- Standard — full coding agent. Just use this.
- PTC — the model writes TypeScript to chain tool ops in one
run_code; fewer round-trips, fewer tokens. - Minimal — two tools, for model benchmarking.
- Create — inspect the running Cordis environment, build new presets, even create a missing plugin and hot-attach it: the "make your own wrench" mode.
Append-only session logs
Sessions are append-only event logs — system prompts, reasoning, tool calls, permission changes all become events, and the next turn is re-derived from the log. When an agent fails, you can trace the exact step. Observable, auditable, reproducible.
Not locked to DeepSeek, and a healthy ecosystem
Add custom providers (base URL, protocol, model list) — you could run GLM inside it. Community plugins worth installing: dsh-at-file, dsh-genui, dsh-automation, DSH-better-sidebar, ModLens.
The honest take
Fascinating system, strong plugin concept — but developer-unfriendly: dense terminology, steep learning curve, raw UI. That's the trade-off of a team that prioritizes research.