InkStain258/dsh-glass-skin

dsh-glass-skin

Acrylic / frosted-glass appearance for DeepSeek Harness: translucent surfaces that let your desktop show through the window, layered on top of whatever theme you already use.

npx github:InkStain258/dsh-glass-skin

One command. It installs the plugin *and* patches the window material.

Windows 11 is the fully supported platform (native acrylic). On macOS the plugin half works and uses the vibrancy the app already has. On Linux the window patch is skipped.

What you get

Layer · Effect Native window material · the OS blurs the desktop behind the window (acrylic on Windows) Glass surfaces · the app's own backgrounds become 70–82% transparent, keeping the active theme's colours Frosted blur · a 30px backdrop blur so text stays readable over a busy wallpaper

Works together with existing theme plugins. It does not replace your theme; it stacks on top of it. Mineradio, the official homepage theme, open-sea-skin and custom themes all keep their palette — only opacity changes.

Install

The one-liner

npx github:InkStain258/dsh-glass-skin

Or from a clone:

git clone https://github.com/InkStain258/dsh-glass-skin.git
cd dsh-glass-skin
node scripts/install.mjs

Close DeepSeek Harness first if you can. The installer patches app.asar, and a running app holds a lock on it. If it is open, the installer tells you so and leaves your files untouched — just quit and re-run.

Then restart the app.

Options

node scripts/install.mjs --dry-run      # show what it would do
node scripts/install.mjs --no-patch     # plugin only: translucency, no desktop show-through
node scripts/install.mjs --no-plugin    # window patch only
node scripts/install.mjs --asar <path>  # app.asar it could not find on its own
node scripts/install.mjs --uninstall    # undo everything

Uninstall

npx github:InkStain258/dsh-glass-skin --uninstall

Or just turn it off: Settings → General → Glass skin. That restores your surfaces immediately and leaves the window patch in place (the window stays blurred acrylic).

To restore the window exactly as it shipped, --uninstall puts back the byte-exact backup the installer made.

After a DSH update

A DSH update silently removes the window patch. The updater replaces resources/app.asar wholesale, so the patched lib/main.js is gone — but the Client plugin in your profile is untouched. The result is a confusing half-state: surfaces stay translucent, yet the desktop no longer shows through, because nothing is asking the OS for acrylic any more.

When that happens, re-apply the patch:

npx github:InkStain258/dsh-glass-skin repair

It checks whether the archive still carries the patch and does nothing if it does, so it is safe to run any time — after every update, or habitually. If the app is open it stops and tells you to quit first, rather than failing halfway through a 180 MB write.

You can also leave it running yourself; the check is a streaming scan of the archive and takes well under a second:

node tools/repair.mjs --build   # exit code 0 = patched, 1 = needs attention

The backup and sidecar from the previous install belong to the *old* build, so repair archives them under a .stale- name before taking a fresh one. It never restores bytes from a different release.

Editing the look

Every surface value lives in one array at the top of plugin/client.js:

const GLASS_TOKENS = [
  { name: '--dsw-alias-bg-base',            light: 30, dark: 22, … },
  { name: '--dsw-specific-sidebar-fill',    light: 26, dark: 18, … },
  …
]

22 means "keep 22% of this surface's own colour", i.e. 78% of the desktop shows through. Raise the numbers for more density and better text contrast; lower them for more glass.

The blur strength is one line in the same file:

backdrop-filter: blur(30px) saturate(140%);

After editing, restart the app (or let HMR pick it up if you are running dsh web with the watcher).

Why a patch is needed at all

Two layers are required, and only one of them can be a pure plugin.

The surfaces are a plugin: DSH lets a client plugin stack a theme-token overlay via ctx.theme.overrideTokens(), which is the cooperative path — the theme service composes it on every palette switch, so it survives theme changes and does not fight other themes.

The window material cannot be a plugin. transparent / backgroundMaterial are BrowserWindow constructor options evaluated when Electron creates the window, before any plugin code runs. So the installer makes one surgical, length-preserving edit to lib/main.js inside app.asar:

// injected right after `show,`
backgroundColor:"#00000000",backgroundMaterial:"acrylic",

It inserts N bytes and removes exactly N bytes from an adjacent JSDoc comment, so the archive's size, header and every entry offset stay identical. Before replacing anything it verifies: size unchanged, header byte-identical, all entry offsets unchanged, only lib/main.js differs, and the extracted file still parses. If any check fails, nothing is written.

Why not transparent: true?

Measured on Electron 44.7.0 / Windows 11 26300 over a high-frequency checkerboard backdrop:

Window options · Desktop visible · Genuinely blurred · Native shadow backgroundMaterial:"acrylic" · yes · yes · intact + transparent: true · yes · yes · collapses to ~2px transparent: true only · yes · no — crisp, not blurred · ~2px backgroundMaterial:"mica" · no · — · none

acrylic alone already yields a real blurred backdrop *and* keeps the window shadow. Adding transparent: true costs the shadow without improving the blur. It is also the exact shape DSH's own welcome window already uses.

Why the blur is a separate layer

backdrop-filter makes an element a containing block for fixed-position descendants. The shell's menus and dialogs are viewport-positioned, so putting the filter on the app frame would silently re-anchor every popover to that frame — and on Windows the frame is offset by the title bar, so everything would shift down.

Instead the plugin appends one empty fixed layer at `z-index:-1`, behind all content. It has no children, so it cannot become anyone's containing block.

Compatibility

• DSH 0.2.x (Electron 44). The patch anchors on createWindow() in lib/main.js; if a future release moves it, the tool refuses and reports instead of guessing.
• Theme plugins: unaffected — the overlay reads colours *from* the theme registry and only changes alpha.
• `prefers-reduced-transparency: reduce`: the plugin turns itself off and says so in Settings instead of ignoring you.
• Menus and popovers stay opaque on purpose, so they remain readable.
• An app update replaces `app.asar` and drops the window patch. Re-run the installer; your plugin and its settings survive.

Known limits

• Windows only for desktop show-through. macOS gets surfaces + the app's own vibrancy; Linux gets surfaces only.
• The sidebar keeps its own background layer, so it looks slightly less blurred than the main pane. That layer also hosts fixed-position menus, so blurring it carries positioning risk and is left opt-in.
• Acrylic's blur radius is chosen by Windows, not by the app.
• Very bright wallpapers reduce text contrast. Raise the GLASS_TOKENS percentages if you read long text.

Development

npm test

Three suites, no browser needed:

Suite · What it protects glass-client-contract.test.mjs · loads the real client.js, runs its factory, renders the settings row with zero props, asserts the token overlay and the single blur layer glass-row-render.test.mjs · the settings row in three states (on / reduced-transparency / no locale service) glass-render.test.mjs · the theme overlay's re-entrancy guard

Each contains a "the old shape must fail" assertion, so the tests cannot silently stop testing anything.

Two bugs these suites exist for, both found the hard way:

1. Reading props.t in the settings row. That slot's owner declares children?: never and passes nothing, so every render threw and the slot system permanently abdicated the entry — an empty Settings page with the error only in the console.
2. Using ctx.get('theme') instead of declaring inject: ['theme']. Under HMR the service already existed so it worked; on a cold boot the plugin activated first, got undefined, and silently vanished.

License

MIT © dsh-glass-skin contributors

DeepSeek Harness is a separate product; this repository only adds files to your own installation and keeps a byte-exact backup of anything it touches.