DeepSeek Adds Creator Mode to Its Open-Source Harness Agent for Building Plugins by Chat
Users describe a tool in plain language, and the agent writes, installs and checks the plugin inside DeepSeek Harness, which remains in public preview.
Published
Last updated / Fact-checked on
DeepSeek on November 2 added a "Creator mode" to DeepSeek Harness, its open-source AI agent platform. Users describe a plugin in plain language, and the agent writes it, installs it and checks that it works. The Hangzhou-based lab announced the feature in a post on X, Bloomberg reported.
Photo: Pexels / Pixabay
DeepSeek's Harness page says the platform is "now in public preview worldwide and open source." It says users can install plugins "or create them through chat in 'Creator mode'" to extend the agent's tools, skills and interface.
Creator mode at a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Product | DeepSeek Harness (dsh), an open-source agent platform |
| New feature | Creator mode: build plugins through chat |
| Architecture | Built on Cordis, "everything is a plugin" |
| License | MIT, per the GitHub repository |
| Status | Public preview |
| Launch options | Desktop app, or npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web for the local web UI |
| Examples shown | Pomodoro timer; 3D model rendering and a video-editing workbench, per Bloomberg |
How the demo works
DeepSeek's page walks through one example. A user asks: "Write a Pomodoro timer plugin for me." The trace shows the agent running on a model labeled "DeepSeek-V41-Flash High."
The agent loads a cordis-plugin-development skill and reads its documentation. It decides that shell.overlay, a frame-wide floating layer, is "the right target for an always-on-top window." It inspects nine runtime providers and queries the layout tree.
It then writes a 35-line package.json and a 638-line client.js. It installs the bundle through a plugin_manager tool, edits five lines, and runs a Bash check on the live plugin. The page says the whole run took 5 minutes and 24 seconds. The timer then appears under installed plugins.
That is DeepSeek's own showcase, not an independent test. The page does not show how often such builds fail.
Bloomberg reported that DeepSeek also showed plugins for rendering 3D models and a video-editing workbench, all made from plain-English prompts. Quartz said the Harness account listed a design workspace, a sandbox game and a 3D LLM visualizer as further examples.
What else Harness does
Beyond plugins, DeepSeek pitches Harness for everyday work with documents, data and slides; coding; research with cited sources; and background tasks. Its official plugin list includes Terminal, Agent loop and Subagents. Agent teams, Auto approval review, Scheduled tasks and Voice input are marked experimental.
One example on the page turns "Every Friday at 17:00 Beijing time" into a weekly scheduled task set to the Asia/Shanghai time zone. A developer "trajectory view" shows each turn's tool calls, such as bash, read and grep, with timing down to the millisecond.
Open source, still in preview
The GitHub repository is published under the MIT license; the commit adopting MIT is dated August 13, 2026. The README says npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web starts a local web UI. Quartz noted that DeepSeek describes Harness as a preview, with core plugins and APIs still changing.
Bloomberg framed the launch as part of DeepSeek's push into AI agents, and said the tool is aimed mainly at developers. Investing.com reported that DeepSeek formed the Harness team this year to compete with AI coding services, a focus for U.S. firms including Anthropic.
A plugin system that writes its own code comes with risk, because a plugin is code the agent adds to the user's own setup. Teams should treat agent-built plugins like any third-party code and review them before relying on them.
What to watch
- Stability. Whether DeepSeek freezes the plugin APIs as Harness leaves preview.
- A plugin ecosystem. Whether users share Creator-mode plugins, and how DeepSeek reviews them.
- Model access. Which DeepSeek models power Creator mode outside the demo.
- Safeguards. Whether DeepSeek documents permission controls for plugin installs.
Creator mode moves the agent from a fixed set of features toward a tool that can extend itself. How useful that is will depend on how well the generated plugins hold up outside a scripted demo.
More coverage is on our Artificial Intelligence hub.
How we reported this
DailyMech reviewed DeepSeek's Harness product page and the project's GitHub repository, including its README and license. Launch timing and the additional plugin examples come from Bloomberg, Quartz and Investing.com. The Pomodoro build times and line counts come from DeepSeek's own demonstration and were not reproduced independently.
Published and fact-checked November 2, 2026.
Sources
- DeepSeek, "DeepSeek Harness" product page, accessed Nov. 2, 2026: https://www.deepseek.com/en/harness/
- GitHub, deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness repository (README and LICENSE), accessed Nov. 2, 2026: https://github.com/deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness
- Bloomberg, Debby Wu, "DeepSeek Boosts AI Agent Offering With New Creator Mode," Nov. 2, 2026: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-11-02/deepseek-boosts-ai-agent-offering-with-new-creator-mode
- Quartz, Cris Tolomia, "DeepSeek is adding a creator mode to let users build custom AI plugins," Nov. 2, 2026: https://qz.com/deepseek-creator-mode-custom-ai-plugins-110226
- Investing.com, "DeepSeek adds creator mode to boost AI agent tools," Nov. 2, 2026: https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/deepseek-adds-creator-mode-to-boost-ai-agent-tools-93CH-4992533
DailyMech used AI tools to help research and draft this article; it was fact-checked by our editors.