dsh-open-branch

dsh-open-branch

One writable side conversation per session, in the right Sidebar — the main conversation keeps running untouched.

What it does

Two ways to open the same panel:

• the composer-toolbar entry (the icon left of Send);
• /side typed in the composer.

/side is a client-side action command: it consumes the trigger token, opens the panel, and submits nothing. No model message is produced, so the main task keeps running while you talk in the side line — which is the whole point.

The first open creates the side session once, at the main session's latest completed turn; every later open reuses that same side session, so opening it again never piles up forks.

The side session is an ordinary DSH Session, so the panel is fully writable and the main conversation is unaffected.

While the main session is still working through its first turn there is no completed prefix to fork from — exactly the moment a side conversation is most wanted — so that one case creates a fresh session in the same directory instead. Neither entry is contributed for a blank session.

Edit and resend

Directly under every completed turn sits a pencil icon. Clicking it opens an editor prefilled with that turn's user message; confirming:

1. forks the session at the event before the original message, so the branch never contains it,
2. sends the edited text into that branch, and
3. opens the branch in the main panel.

The original session is never modified — nothing is rewritten in place, because a session log is append-only.

Placement note — why the icon is not directly under the user bubble.

The shipped user bubble builds its own action row internally and exposes no extension point, and its content projection is not importable by a plugin. Replacing that renderer would mean hand-writing a copy that loses reference chips, attachments and styling.

The documented alternative — register a new Chat row kind through ctx.uiConversation.events.register plus a conversation.chat.node renderer, anchored at userMessageSeq + 0.05 — does not render. The registration succeeds (the key becomes an active occupant), but conversation-nodes/chat-snapshot-builder.ts ends its legacyContribution switch with default: return EMPTY_CONTRIBUTION, so a kind the builder does not know contributes nothing to the rendered node stream. v0.5.0 shipped that attempt and showed no row; v0.5.1 reverts to the turn-tail entry, which is the only placement that actually renders today.

Status

v0.5.0. Cold boot verified in a fresh browser page, not inferred from registration.

The web boot audit (assertEntriesActive) refuses to mount the whole GUI when any client entry fails to activate, so a broken plugin here costs the user their whole editor, not just the plugin. Every release is checked against that audit by loading the composed profile in a fresh page with an empty module table and reading the console:

v0.5.0  title: DeepSeek Harness   nodes: 387   console errors: 0

That run also proves every injected service resolved (slots, sessions, resources, sidebarRightTabs, sidebarRight, commandUi, uiWorkspace, uiConversation) and that every registration call succeeded: a missing service would leave the entry pending and a throwing registration would fail it, and the boot audit refuses to mount on either.

v0.1.1 and earlier are known-bad. The package was renamed without renaming the __ModuleLoader__ factory id, so the client entry failed to import and the GUI refused to boot (web boot: 1 entry did not activate).

Known gap: the open → panel → scroll path has not been exercised end to end by a human. Earlier releases mounted the panel but its conversation could not be scrolled; v0.1.1 added the display:flex / width:100% / height:100% / min-height:0 tab box the shipped sidebar chat uses, and that fix is still awaiting hands-on confirmation.

Why it is different

	dsh-sidebar-qa	dsh-nested-followups	dsh-side-branch (Side Ask)	dsh-open-branch
Panel per session	one	branches in its own Tree View	one, rebuilt every turn	one, created once
Side conversation	writable	read-only tools	read-only by design	writable
Where it lives	right Sidebar	its own Tree View	right Sidebar	right Sidebar
Shadows shipped UI	no	no	no	no
Writes custom session events	—	—	—	no

Design commitments, each chosen against a failure mode observed in a competitor:

1. No custom session event type. The plugin appends nothing to the session log. Several community plugins that do have documented log-corruption and reopen failures; this one keeps the log owned by the Harness, so fork, resume, replay and export keep working.
2. No shadowing of shipped UI. It registers its own tab type and its own child slot (sidebranch.conversation) instead of replacing sidebar.chat.conversation, and it disables no built-in component.
3. One side session, created once. The host-to-side binding is kept in memory and mirrored to localStorage, and creation is serialized, so a second open reveals the same tab instead of forking again.
4. Official fork lifecycle. Forking goes through the shipped remote.session.fork, so the child carries real lineage and the Harness owns the cut, the synthetic closers, and the title.
5. Reference-scoped lifetime. The side Session is retained through the resource provider for exactly as long as its tab exists, and released on the tab's abort signal.

How it works

• Host half (index.js): contributes nothing. No route, no service, no state.
• Browser half (client.js):
  • registers a sidebranch resource protocol whose address is one per host session (dsh-resource://sidebranch/for/), which is what makes the panel a singleton and makes a repeat open reveal the same tab;
  • registers the sidebranch right-Sidebar tab type and its body;
  • declares and fills the sidebranch.conversation child slot with the shared conversation.content factory, so the embedded conversation is the real one;
  • adds one conversation.input.right entry — the composer-toolbar button;
  • registers the /side client command through ctx.commandUi with the action kind, which is what makes it submit no model message;
  • falls back to ctx.sessions.create({ cwd }) when the fork reports session/fork-unavailable, and rethrows every other failure;
  • registers one Conversation Node definition through ctx.uiConversation.events.register plus its conversation.chat.node renderer keyed dsh-open-branch-edit, which is what places the pencil row under each user message;
  • on confirm, forks at userMessageSeq - 1, sends the edited text through reference.binding.session.prompt(..., 'queue') inside ctx.sessions.using(...), then opens the branch with ctx.uiWorkspace.openSession.

Install

This plugin is distributed through GitHub only; it is not published to npm.

dsh plugin --profile 
 add github:Arbeiter-bit/dsh-open-branch

Pin a revision when you want a reproducible install:

dsh plugin --profile 
 add github:Arbeiter-bit/dsh-open-branch#v0.2.0

The GUI Plugins → Add plugin dialog accepts the same spec. Restart or refresh the page afterwards so the browser half loads.

Uninstall:

dsh plugin --profile 
 remove dsh-open-branch

Limitations

• A blank session contributes neither entry. Once the main session has content both work, including while its first turn is still running — in that case the side session is a fresh session rather than a fork, so it inherits nothing.
• The side session reflects the main session as of its creation. Later turns of the main session are not visible in the side conversation — that is the price of a real, independent, writable session, and the opposite trade from plugins that rebuild the branch from the main session every turn.
• Deleting the side session outside the plugin leaves a stale binding in localStorage; the next open detects the missing session and forks a new one.
• Localized labels are chosen from navigator.language (zh/en); the Client locale service is not wired yet.

Roadmap

• Edit a sent message and continue from that point (the rewrite origin kind the Client already reserves but nothing produces).
• An explicit "the side session sees the main session as of creation" note in the panel, so the frozen-context trade is visible rather than surprising.

License

MIT