dsh-plugin-default-workspace

dsh-plugin-default-workspace

A small DSH plugin that pins the no-context fallback Workspace of new Sessions to one folder, chosen in the Settings dialog.

Why this exists

DSH chooses the Workspace of a new Session from context, never from configuration:

Situation	Stock DSH behavior	With this plugin
A Session holding a conversation is open in some folder	the new Session stays in that folder	unchanged
The app opens on a saved Session holding a conversation	that Session is restored	unchanged
An explicit target is passed (a workspace row's +, add workspace)	that target is used	unchanged
Nothing to go on: no saved selection, a saved Session that no longer exists, or a saved/current empty New Session (nothing ever sent)	the most recently active Workspace	the folder chosen in Settings

An empty New Session is not "already conversing in another folder": DSH marks a Session blank (SessionSummary.blank) until its first turn starts, and that flag is what decides the last row above. Clicking a workspace row and typing still starts the conversation in that folder; the folder only takes over once there is a conversation in it.

The Host owns no setting for this. The only "default workspace" concept in DSH (workspaceRegistry.initializeDefault, \deepseek-harness\default-workspace) is created once on a pristine install and requires an empty Workspace registry and empty Session history, so it cannot be repointed on an installation that already has Sessions.

Choosing the folder

Settings carries one page from this plugin, Default folder, as its own navigation tab (settings.section, order 30 — after the shipped sections):

• the selector lists every registered Workspace by path, plus Follow DSH, which switches the plugin off and restores the stock "most recently active Workspace" rule;
• Choose another folder… opens the same folder chooser the Workspace UI uses — the Desktop preload dialog when the shell exposes it, otherwise the Host chooser through uiWorkspace.pickDirectory(). A folder the Workspace registry does not know yet is registered first, exactly like Add workspace… (uiWorkspace.workspaces.create({ path })), so a picked folder is immediately usable;
• the choice is stored in the page's localStorage under dsh.default-workspace.settings and is read at every routing decision, so it applies to the next New Session with no reload and no re-apply.

With nothing stored, the compiled-in DEFAULT_WORKSPACE_PATH still applies, so an installation that never opens the page behaves exactly as it did before. A stored folder that is not registered has no effect and the stock rule stays in charge — this plugin never invents a Workspace.

The preference lives in the browser, not in the Host user-settings document: the policy this plugin installs is browser-side, and a Host-backed field would make the host half depend on the framework's schema package, which a plugin mounted from a bare file:///… path cannot resolve. See Why localStorage below.

Files

Path	Role
package.json	Package manifest: host half plus the dsh.client declaration and exports["./client"] the Client module system scans
lib/index.js	Host half — deliberately empty; the policy and its Settings page are browser-side
lib/client.js	Browser half — wraps uiWorkspace.startSession and uiWorkspace.restoreSelection, and contributes the Default folder Settings page
test/interception.test.mjs	Maintenance check: runs the real browser bundle against a fake uiWorkspace and asserts every rule above, the Settings page included
test/host-integration.test.mjs	Maintenance check: asks the running Host whether it composes and serves this plugin's browser half
test/probe-report.mjs	Reads the decision trace the browser half writes into the page's localStorage
CHANGELOG.md	Release notes
LICENSE	MIT

The browser half wraps the two navigation entry points on the uiWorkspace service instance. Both wrappers delegate to the stock method for every case they do not own, and swallow their own failures back into the stock flow, so the worst case is exactly the stock behavior.

Why localStorage

The Host settings document edits fields a plugin declares with .volatile() in its exported Config schema, which comes from @deepseek-ai/schemastery. A plugin mounted as a file:///… Loader row resolves its own imports relative to its directory, so that bare specifier is unreachable without shipping a node_modules next to the plugin. The preference is therefore browser-local, which is also where the policy lives. The cost is that it is per browser origin and invisible to the Host configuration file; the benefit is a plugin with no dependencies at all.

Three constraints this plugin had to learn the hard way

Each one caused a silent, evidence-free failure on the live Desktop app; the traces from test/probe-report.mjs are what pinned them down.

1. Declare no inject. With inject: ["uiWorkspace"] the plugin never applied at all — no error, no console line, just a page where the policy did not exist. The service does not exist yet when the entry is applied (the trace shows apply → waiting → installed 247 ms later), so the browser half polls ctx.get("uiWorkspace") every 50 ms instead of waiting.
2. Never read another plugin's services through a context proxy. The stock bootstrap builds its supersession signal with this.ctx.layout.beginNavigation(); doing that from here throws cannot get property "layout" without inject — which made the primary path fall back to the stock flow. Supersession is now checked against mainReference, and test/interception.test.mjs runs against a service whose ctx has no layout at all, so this cannot regress unnoticed.
3. blank, not "exists", decides. A saved Session that still exists but never received a turn is an empty New Session, and must not pin its folder. DSH's SessionSummary.blank carries exactly that fact.

Mounting

The plugin is mounted by one patch in the profile's user patch layer, %USERPROFILE%\.dsh\profiles\desktop\cordis.patch.yml. The patch dialect (@deepseek-ai/cordis-plugin-include) is id-targeted, so adding a new top-level row means a patch with no id and an insert list — a bare - id: patch matches nothing and is skipped with a warning:

- insert:
    - id: default-workspace
      name: file:///C:/Users//.dsh/plugins/dsh-plugin-default-workspace/lib/index.js

The absolute file: name keeps the plugin out of the profile's pnpm-managed node_modules, so installing or updating other plugins cannot prune it (the loader's own anchorInsertedPluginNames is what turns a ./… name into a file URL relative to the patch file, so an absolute one is also fine).

Reload rules when editing this plugin:

• Editing cordis.patch.yml is hot-reloaded: the profile HMR watcher re-applies the patch layer through reconcileProfilePatches, which mounts or unmounts this entry live. No restart needed.
• Editing lib/client.js reaches the running Host's Client module graph immediately: a new bundle revision is composed and served (proven by test/host-integration.test.mjs, which derives the revision from the file's own metadata). The page, however, does not re-fetch it on its own — the Electron HTTP cache showed no new bundle fetch after boot — so a page reload or app restart is what loads the new half, and with it the Settings page.
• Bump POLICY_VERSION whenever the wrapped policy changes, otherwise a page that already installed the old wrapper treats the new half as a no-op.

Verify

$node = "$env:USERPROFILE\.dsh\dsh-runtimes\dsh-primary-runtime\dependencies\node\bin\node.exe"
$plugin = "$env:USERPROFILE\.dsh\plugins\dsh-plugin-default-workspace"

# the interception rules, against a fake uiWorkspace service
& $node "$plugin\test\interception.test.mjs"

# the live Host actually composed and serves the browser half
& $node "$plugin\test\host-integration.test.mjs"

# what the page actually did: policy versions installed, branch per decision
& $node "$plugin\test\probe-report.mjs"

In the GUI:

• Open Settings: a Default folder tab must appear in the navigation, after the shipped sections. Pick a Workspace, or Choose another folder… and pick a directory; the page must show the new folder immediately.
• Quit and reopen the app while an empty New Session in another folder was the last thing open — the app must come up on a New Session in the chosen folder.
• Quit and reopen while a conversation in another folder was the last thing open — that conversation must come back, still in its own folder.
• With a conversation open in another folder, press New Session (Ctrl+N) — it must stay in that folder. With an empty New Session open in another folder, Ctrl+N must go to the chosen folder; a workspace row's own + always targets that row's folder.
• Select Follow DSH on the page and repeat the last check: the new Session must stay in the most recently active Workspace instead.

Disable or remove

• Disable: delete the - insert: patch from cordis.patch.yml (the HMR watcher unmounts the entry live; otherwise restart).
• Remove completely: delete %USERPROFILE%\.dsh\plugins\dsh-plugin-default-workspace.
• Remove the stored preference: clear the dsh.default-workspace.settings key from the app's localStorage (the page's Follow DSH choice is stored there too).
• The profile patch as it was before this plugin was added is not part of this package; keep your own copy of cordis.patch.yml if you want one.

Maintenance after a DSH update

The browser half depends on private members of the stock uiWorkspace service (workspaces.list, workspaces.create, pickDirectory, sessions, selection, mainReference, lifetime, connectWorkspace, replaceMain), on the Session summary's blank flag, and — for the Settings page — on the settings.section slot type and the slots/locale services. A DSH update may rename them; the wrappers then fail closed into the stock behavior (a console warning appears in the renderer, and the trace records interception-failed), and the page either disappears or reports settings-page-failed. Re-run the checks above after an update: a failure names the rule that broke.

DEFAULT_WORKSPACE_PATH and DEFAULT_WORKSPACE_ID in lib/client.js are now only the initial default, used while nothing is stored; the live value is the stored preference. Bump POLICY_VERSION with any policy change so the installed page replaces the wrapper instead of keeping it.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.