What is DS Bot?
DS Bot is a community plugin for DeepSeek Harness (DSH), DeepSeek's open-source agent program, that turns it into a set of named bots you keep for months rather than sessions you throw away. Each bot has its own role, model and Markdown memory. A main bot called Chief creates the others and sets up group chats; in a group, an admin bot answers by default and pulls in colleagues with @mentions, and a bot can hand a job to another and get the result posted back.
It ships as a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux with DSH built in, as a DSH plugin (ds-bot on npm), for DSH Web, and as a Docker image for a NAS. Settings holds a shared library of MCP servers and skills you assign per bot, and a Usage page shows tokens by bot and by model. Bots can create and edit .docx, .pptx and .xlsx files and, since 0.2.2, drive a browser with saved logins.
It is Apache-2.0, written mainly in JavaScript by an independent developer, Fei2411, and is not a DeepSeek product. Data stays on your machine in the DSH home folder.
Is DS Bot worth it?
DS Bot answers a question most agent tools skip: what happens after the session ends. Its bots persist, remember your preferences in Markdown files you can edit, and keep working in group chats where an admin decides who needs to speak, which keeps the token bill lower than waking every member for every message.
Traction came fast. The repository was created on 7 October 2026 and had 5,297 stars and 495 forks by 3 November; the npm plugin was downloaded 12,755 times in the last week. Releases are near daily, with v0.2.3 to v0.2.7 between 27 October and 3 November, adding Linux packages, browser use, a system-tray mode and an avatar library. The Windows installer is about 212 MB and needs no administrator rights or separate Node install.
The risks are the ones you would expect from a month-old project. It is labelled v0.2 preview, the changelog warns that minor versions may break things before 1.0, and 0.2.1 already forced plugin users to remove and re-add it. DSH itself is still in preview. Chief has very high rights over every other bot, and browser bots keep logins, so the safe course is to give them only accounts you would let a new intern use and, in Docker, mount only the folders they need. The installer is unsigned, so Windows and macOS warn on first run. And the claim that admin-led groups save tokens is a design argument; no measurement has been published.
The author credits the projects it learned from, including Codex, Hermes Agent, OpenCode and goose, and says it contains none of their code. That openness, the clear data story and the speed of fixes put it ahead of most hobby multi-agent shells.
Where it earns its place
A freelance translator working between Chinese and English
Keep one assistant that remembers my glossary and client preferences
Create a bot in the desktop app with a DeepSeek API key, tell it the house terms once and edit its Markdown memory when it gets one wrong; costs are DeepSeek's per-token rates for that one bot.
A solo SaaS founder
Have a writer and a coder bot work on a launch page together
Ask Chief to set up a group with Writer and Coder, give it a goal, and let the admin split the work and check each stage; group chats cost more tokens than a single bot, so watch the Usage page.
A home-lab user with a Synology NAS
Run bots around the clock without leaving a laptop on
Build the Docker image in docker/, which bundles DSH Web and DS Bot, and mount only the folders the bots should see; the container is their sandbox.
Before you commit
- Setup
- Download DS-Bot-<version>-win-x64.exe (about 212 MB), the macOS zip, or the Linux AppImage or .deb from Releases and sign in with a DeepSeek account or API key; or add ds-bot as a plugin in DSH Desktop 0.2.1-rc.2 or later.
- Integrations
- DeepSeek Harness and any model DSH can configure; MCP servers and skills from a shared Capabilities library; a GitHub connector; Office files; Playwright browser profiles per bot.
- Data and privacy
- Bots, chats and memory are kept in bot/ and sessions/ under the DSH home folder (~/.dsh by default) and survive uninstalling; prompts go to the model provider you choose.
- Cost at scale
- The software is free; spend is model tokens, which rise with the number of bots in a group. The Usage page breaks it down by bot and model.
- Limits
- Preview status with breaking minor releases; Ubuntu 24.04+ may refuse the AppImage; CentOS 7 and other old-glibc systems need Docker; local MCP commands need your approval before they run.
What’s good
- Persistent bots with editable Markdown memory
- Group chats with an admin that calls in other bots only when needed
- One-click desktop app with DSH bundled, plus Docker for a NAS
- Token usage by bot and by model
- Everything stored locally in the DSH home folder
What’s not
- Preview software; breaking changes before 1.0
- Chief bot has very broad rights
- Unsigned installers trigger OS warnings
- No published measurement of group-chat token savings
- 132 open issues a month after launch
Best for
DeepSeek Harness users who want a few persistent assistants with memory and group chats on their own computer, and are comfortable with preview software.
DS Bot alternatives
DS Bot: common questions
- Is DS Bot worth it?
- DS Bot is the friendliest way yet to keep a standing team of DeepSeek agents on your desktop, but it is a preview build on top of a preview product, with a very powerful bot in charge. We rate it 3.7 out of 5.
- How much does DS Bot cost?
- Free under Apache-2.0. Model calls are billed by your provider; with DeepSeek's API that is pay-as-you-go, and group chats cost more than single bots.
- What are the downsides of DS Bot?
- Preview software; breaking changes before 1.0; chief bot has very broad rights; unsigned installers trigger OS warnings; no published measurement of group-chat token savings; 132 open issues a month after launch.
- Who is DS Bot best for?
- DeepSeek Harness users who want a few persistent assistants with memory and group chats on their own computer, and are comfortable with preview software.
- How much does DS Bot cost for a team or in production?
- The software is free; spend is model tokens, which rise with the number of bots in a group. The Usage page breaks it down by bot and model.
- Is DS Bot safe for company data?
- Bots, chats and memory are kept in bot/ and sessions/ under the DSH home folder (~/.dsh by default) and survive uninstalling; prompts go to the model provider you choose.
- What are the best DS Bot alternatives?
- The closest alternatives we have reviewed are DeepSeek Harness, OpenClaw, Hermes Agent and Open Multi-Agent (OMA).
Answers checked Nov 3, 2026.