dsh-time-machine

📦 @goodandready/dsh-time-machine

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⚡ Overview

dsh-time-machine provides an automated safety net and instantaneous rollback engine for DeepSeek Harness workspaces.

Autonomous agents frequently execute complex multi-file refactorings, run mutating shell commands, or install dependencies. When an unexpected regression or broken state occurs, manual git reversion can be messy and risk losing untracked files or user git history.

dsh-time-machine creates lightweight shadow git snapshots in the background without modifying user git commits or branches, providing 1-click interactive rollback, visual file diffs, and automatic recovery prompts on command failure.

graph LR
    subgraph AgentAction [DSH Agent Mutating Operations]
        Agent[🤖 Agent: Edits Files / Runs Commands] --> Trigger{Pre-Action Hook}
    end

    subgraph TimeMachine [dsh-time-machine Core Engine]
        Trigger --> ShadowGit[Shadow Git Snapshot Engine]
        ShadowGit --> Snapshots[(In-Memory Checkpoint Timeline)]
        Snapshots --> DiffEngine[Visual Workspace Diff Calculator]
    end

    subgraph SafetyNet [Restoration & Web UI Studio]
        DiffEngine --> Sidebar[🕒 Time Machine Sidebar Tab]
        Snapshots --> Rollback[⏪ 1-Click Instant Workspace Rollback]
        Rollback --> CleanState[Restored Pristine Working Tree]
        Trigger -.->|Command Error| AutoHeal[🩹 Auto-Heal Rollback Prompt]
    end

    style AgentAction fill:#1e1e2e,stroke:#89b4fa,stroke-width:2px,color:#cdd6f4
    style TimeMachine fill:#181825,stroke:#cba6f7,stroke-width:2px,color:#cdd6f4
    style SafetyNet fill:#11111b,stroke:#a6e3a1,stroke-width:2px,color:#cdd6f4

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🌟 Key Capabilities

1. 🛡️ Lightweight Shadow Git Snapshots

• Captures the full working tree, staged changes, and untracked files using isolated Git shadow tree references;
• Zero interference with user commit history, current active branch, or repository staging area;
• Maintains a rolling history of the most recent checkpoints with clear timestamps, session scoping, and labels.

2. ⏪ Instant Safe Rollback (time_machine_checkpoint_rollback)

• Restores the entire workspace or specific files to any previous checkpoint in milliseconds;
• Uses non-destructive checkout-index and clean without moving HEAD or rewriting branch history;
• Can be triggered programmatically by the agent or interactively by the user in the UI.

3. 🔍 Visual Snapshot Diff Inspector (time_machine_diff)

• Computes file-by-file visual diffs comparing current workspace state against any checkpoint;
• Highlights added, deleted, and modified lines with clean line numbers and statistics.

4. 🕒 Interactive Sidebar & Settings Timeline (lib/client.js)

• Seamlessly integrates into DSH Web UI sidebar and settings tab;
• Displays a chronological timeline of session checkpoints with 1-click "Rollback", "Diff", and "Delete" buttons.

5. 🩹 Auto-Heal on Command Failure

• Automatically records checkpoints when a tool or command fails, preserving recovery options.

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4. Selective File Rollback & Staging Safety (v0.1.15)

• Single File Restore: Restore individual files corrupted by an agent without losing progress in other files via time_machine_file_rollback or Diff Modal UI.
• Staging Safety Guard: Preserves user uncommitted git add index (stagedTreeHash) across turns.
• Pre-Tool Auto-Checkpoints: Captures checkpoints automatically prior to high-risk tools (bash, execute_command, apply_patch).
• Structured File Diff Navigation: Monospace side-by-side file tree with line addition/deletion statistics.

🛠️ Agent Tools Reference (7 Tools)

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📦 Quick Installation

dsh plugin --profile web add @goodandready/dsh-time-machine

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⚙️ Configuration Reference (settings.yaml)

dsh-time-machine:
  autoSnapshotEnabled: true    # Automatically take checkpoints before file modifications
  maxSnapshots: 20             # Maximum rolling checkpoints retained in memory
  autoHealPrompt: true         # Prompt for rollback when a command fails

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📋 Release Notes

v0.1.16 — Security Hardening & Sidebar Tab Deduplication

• Security (Gitea #38): Converted isTrustedSettingsRequest to a strict fail-closed model, verifying loopback IP (127.0.0.1, ::1), sec-fetch-site (same-origin, none), request origin matching host, and bearer tokens. Enforced HTTP method restrictions across all REST routes: all 5 mutating endpoints (/create, /delete, /prune, /rollback, /rollback-file) strictly require POST and return 405 Method Not Allowed otherwise, while read routes (/snapshots, /diff) strictly require GET.
• Fixed (GitHub #2): Resolved sidebar duplicate registration exception (tab kind "time-machine" is already registered) in DSH >= 0.1.6-alpha.1 when both native sidebarRightTabs and betterSidebar are present. Unified tab registration under a single shared guard with native sidebar precedence and safe error suppression.

v0.1.15 — Selective File Rollback, Staging Safety & Rich Diff Modal

• Added in v0.1.15: Selective single-file rollback (time_machine_file_rollback tool and /rollback-file HTTP route) enabling surgical restoration of specific modified files without touching the rest of the workspace.
• Added in v0.1.15: Staging area isolation via stagedTreeHash, protecting staged files during snapshot creation and rollback.
• Added in v0.1.15: Interactive file browser in Diff Modal with per-file stat and diff patch preview.
• Added in v0.1.15: Automated pre-tool checkpoints (auto:pre-tool:<tool>) triggered before tool executions that could modify the workspace.
• Changed in v0.1.15: Strict compliance with DSH localization standard (pure en/zh client bundle, external Russian translations registered via goodandready/dsh-russian-lang).

v0.1.12 — Fix Oversized Clock Icon in Native Sidebar Guide

• v0.1.14: Complete visual alignment with the dsh-clinebot design token standard: full light/dark theme support using --dsw-alias-* tokens, primary and danger action buttons, status badges for settings card and timeline, dark modal unified diff viewer with backdrop blur. Added CSRF protection (isTrustedSettingsRequest) for all mutating HTTP routes, hooked orphaned Git index cleanup (cleanupOrphanedIndices) into plugin initialization, and added autoHealPrompt error checkpoint support to the legacy event bus fallback.
• v0.1.13: Deprecated and removed top-level settings.section fallback to prevent occupying the flat global settings sidebar in DeepSeek Harness Web UI; plugin settings strictly reside in collapsible settings.plugin.item card. Harmonized settings scope resolution using safe ctx.get('settingsScope') proxy access.
• Fixed in v0.1.12: Replaced function-based icon with dedicated TimeMachineIcon component supporting both props object { size, className } and numeric argument, with explicit inline sizing (width, height, display: inline-block, flex: none) to prevent overflow in the Right Sidebar Guide card.

v0.1.11 — Dual Sidebar Support: Native DSH Right Sidebar & BetterSidebar

• Added in v0.1.11: Support for native DSH Right Sidebar (sidebarRightTabs + sidebar.right.pane.tab) introduced in DSH 0.1.5-alpha.1, including guide page registration with custom icon.
• Preserved in v0.1.11: Legacy betterSidebar integration retained with deterministic surface-scoped registrations, preventing ID collisions or duplicate mounts when both surfaces exist.
• Added in v0.1.11: Graceful degradation to plugin settings card when neither sidebar surface is available.

v0.1.10 — Stability, Dynamic CWD, Unified Diff & Architecture Polish

• Added in v0.1.10: Dynamic / session-aware cwd resolution: TimeMachine tools and REST endpoints automatically locate the active session workspace or accept explicit target directory.
• Added in v0.1.10: Unified diff support (format: "patch" | "stat") with size limits (up to 256KB) and clean truncation warnings.
• Added in v0.1.10: Async execution queue on Git mutation engine to completely eliminate lockfile collisions under concurrent agent operations.
• Added in v0.1.10: Single-batch Git ref querying using git for-each-ref replacing $O(N)$ sequential git log processes for instant snapshot listings.
• Added in v0.1.10: Redundant commit deduplication: auto-snapshots are safely skipped if the working tree has not changed.
• Added in v0.1.10: Startup cleanup of temporary tm_index_* staging files.
• Changed in v0.1.10: Settings UI card streamlined, directing snapshot inspection to the dedicated Time Machine sidebar tab.
• Changed in v0.1.10: Comprehensive error logging replacing silent exceptions.

v0.1.9 — Event Bus Harmonization & Dependency Cleanup

• Changed in v0.1.9: Harmonized event bus subscriptions to prevent duplicate checkpoints. Native DSH session/event bus takes precedence, with legacy ctx.events used strictly as a fallback when ctx.on is unavailable.
• Changed in v0.1.9: Removed unused @deepseek-ai/dsh-credentials from peerDependencies.
• Added in v0.1.9: Standardized project design contract in docs/design/DESIGN.md.

v0.1.7 — Critical Safety, Staging Isolation & Native Event Bus

• Changed in v0.1.7: Safe workspace rollback via read-tree + checkout-index + clean -fd. Rolling back to a checkpoint never modifies branch HEAD or severs git commit history.
• Changed in v0.1.7: User staging area protection. Checkpoints now isolate git index creation through GIT_INDEX_FILE, preventing disruption of pre-staged files in .git/index.
• Changed in v0.1.7: Native DSH session event integration. Subscribed to session/event bus for automated checkpoints on turn/start, approval/asked, turn/end, and command errors.
• Changed in v0.1.7: Automatic Git ref cleanup on snapshot eviction to eliminate disk ref leaks.
• Changed in v0.1.7: Direct working directory diff computation when comparing checkpoints with uncommitted changes.
• Changed in v0.1.7: Strict compliance with DSH Plugin Authoring guidelines: form fields are enabled only when settings status is ready.
• Added in v0.1.7: WebServer request body size limit (1MB max payload) for DoS protection.
• Added in v0.1.7: Complete Chinese localization (zh) in frontend interface.

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📄 License

MIT © GooDAnDReaDY