What Is dsh-skill-viewer? Web Panel for DSH Skills and MCP

dsh-skill-viewer is a Web UI plugin for DeepSeek Harness (DSH Plugin) that adds both Skills and MCP management panels to the settings page, along with a unified dsh-panel CLI, so you can manage skills and MCP servers visually in the browser instead of editing files. This article covers what it is, its core features, the complete install/update/uninstall commands, typical usage, and common troubleshooting in the DSH Plugin ecosystem.

What Is dsh-skill-viewer?

dsh-skill-viewer solves the lack of visual management for skills and MCP servers in DeepSeek Harness (DSH): it provides Skills and MCP panels in the web settings page so you can view, enable/disable, delete, and migrate skills directly in the browser and manage MCP server configuration without editing files. The positioning and facts below all come from the official README (source):

dsh-skill-viewer is maintained by fishquito7 and open-sourced under the MIT license. On GitHub the repository has been renamed to dsh-skill-mcp-panel (formerly dsh-skill-viewer), and the package name and repo commands all use dsh-skill-mcp-panel. It is a UI plugin in the DSH Plugin ecosystem: skill entities still live on disk in their owning directories (global ~/.dsh/skills or workspace .dsh/skills), and the page and the CLI are just managers over those files — no hidden storage or junction points, so after uninstalling the plugin, skills remain ordinary files that DSH still discovers. Core capabilities span the skill card list, workspace divider, batch migration, skill grouping, scope-aware management, and an MCP panel supporting Stdio and HTTP.

What Are the Core Features of dsh-skill-viewer?

The core capabilities of dsh-skill-viewer revolve around "skill visualization + MCP visualization": the Skills panel handles the card list, add/delete/enable/disable, batch migration, and grouping, while the MCP panel handles server configuration, hot reload, and connection tests — every operation is hot-effective without a gateway restart. These capabilities all come from the official README (source):

• Skill card list: preview registered skills, click a card to expand its full content, with enable/disable status tags, search by name, and auto-refresh on page load.
• Add and drag-drop skills: click "+" to pick a .md or .zip file, or drag files, archives, or skill folders onto the page; directory bundles, single files, and archives are auto-detected, and non-compliant content is rejected with a reason.
• Workspace divider: skills live in their owning location (global ~/.dsh/skills or workspace .dsh/skills); clicking a bar filters to that workspace's skills only.
• Batch migration: select a source workspace, target workspaces (multi-select), and skills in the dialog, then copy or move in bulk; migration runs one by one, failures do not affect the rest, and move mode allows one target.
• Skill grouping: create, rename, and delete groups and filter by group; group config is written only to ~/.dsh/skills/.system/skill-viewer/groups.json, not to skill directories.
• Scope-aware management and MCP panel: same-named skills in multiple scopes are operated precisely by (name + scope); the MCP panel manages the managed block of cordis.patch.yml and supports Stdio and HTTP (streamable-http), hot-reloaded by DSH HMR after saving.

How to Install and Enable dsh-skill-viewer?

Installing dsh-skill-viewer is best done from the official release tarball with a single dsh plugin command into the current profile; after restarting the gateway and refreshing the page it is enabled. Update with dsh-panel update and uninstall with dsh plugin remove. The commands and facts below all come from the official README (source); the reference commands default to --profile web, so adjust the profile when needed:

1. Install dsh-skill-viewer: run the install command in the DeepSeek Harness terminal. The official first choice is the release tarball — it does not go through Git and is not restricted by pnpm v11 build scripts:

dsh plugin --profile web add https://github.com/Fishquito7/dsh-skill-mcp-panel/releases/download/v2.0.1/dsh-skill-mcp-panel-2.0.1.tgz

Wait for the command to report a completed install.

2. Install from Git (alternative): you can also install the same plugin via Git:

dsh plugin --profile web add github:Fishquito7/dsh-skill-mcp-panel

Dependencies from Git sources are not allowed to run prepare build scripts by default; if you see "git-hosted plugins build on install...", add the key pnpm prints to allowBuilds in the profile directory's pnpm-workspace.yaml and rerun.

3. Enable: restart the gateway and confirm the panels: after install, restart the gateway:

dsh-restart

After the restart, refresh the page — the Skills panel appears below Plugins in settings, with the MCP panel below it.

4. Update dsh-skill-viewer: use dsh-panel to check and update the plugin:

dsh-panel update [--yes]

You can also update a subcommand family separately: dsh-panel skill update for skill commands and dsh-panel mcp update for MCP commands.

5. Uninstall dsh-skill-viewer: remove the plugin from the current profile:

dsh plugin --profile web remove dsh-skill-mcp-panel

After uninstall, skills remain ordinary files on disk and are not deleted.

Typical dsh-skill-viewer Usage

Typical dsh-skill-viewer usage is a dual entry: the browser panels handle visual operations and the dsh-panel CLI handles scriptable batch management; both ultimately change skill files on disk or cordis.patch.yml, and the DSH file watcher picks up changes immediately with no gateway restart. (source) The four steps below cover daily usage from listing skills to configuring an MCP server.

1. List and add skills: view all skills (with their workspace) and add a .md file, directory bundle, or .zip archive to global:

dsh-panel skill list
dsh-panel skill add ./my-skill.md

2. Add to a workspace and migrate skills: add directly to a specific workspace, or use scope/migrate to copy or move between global and workspaces (--copy copies; default moves):

dsh-panel skill add ./my-skill.md --workspace D:\ProjectA
dsh-panel skill migrate all --from global --to D:\ProjectA --copy --yes

3. Manage enable/disable and delete: disable, enable, or delete by name (delete asks for confirmation); for same-named skills in multiple scopes, pass --global / --project / --workspace explicitly:

dsh-panel skill disable <name>
dsh-panel skill enable <name>
dsh-panel skill delete <name>

4. Add and test an MCP server: add a Stdio server with --stdio or an HTTP server with --http --url, then test the connection:

dsh-panel mcp add --name <serverName> --stdio --command <cmd>
dsh-panel mcp test <serverName>

dsh-skill-viewer Troubleshooting

The four most common dsh-skill-viewer issues are Git installs blocked by pnpm build scripts, same-named skill scope confusion, panels missing after install, and the CLI not finding skills in other workspaces — fixed respectively with allowBuilds config, scope flags, restarting the gateway, and --cwd. (source)

1. Git install reports "git-hosted plugins build on install...": symptom: pnpm refuses to run build scripts during a Git install; cause: dependencies from Git sources are not allowed to run prepare scripts by default (pnpm v11). Fix: add the key pnpm prints to allowBuilds in the profile directory's pnpm-workspace.yaml and rerun, or switch to the official release tarball:

dsh plugin --profile web add https://github.com/Fishquito7/dsh-skill-mcp-panel/releases/download/v2.0.1/dsh-skill-mcp-panel-2.0.1.tgz

2. Same-named skills error or hit the wrong copy: symptom: enabling/disabling/deleting a same-named skill affects the wrong copy; cause: the same skill name exists in both global and a workspace. Fix: pass --global / --project / --workspace explicitly on the CLI to pick the scope, while rows on the page expand and operate independently by (name + scope):

dsh-panel skill disable <name> --global

3. No panels in the settings page after install: symptom: the Skills and MCP panels still do not show after a refresh; cause: the gateway was not restarted after install. Fix: run dsh-restart to restart the gateway, then refresh the settings page:

dsh-restart

4. The CLI cannot find skills in other workspaces: symptom: dsh-panel skill list does not show skills of a workspace; cause: the CLI only scans the project root and user root anchored at the current directory. Fix: pass --cwd pointing to the workspace path:

dsh-panel skill list --cwd D:\ProjectA

Use Cases and Notes

dsh-skill-viewer fits every scenario where you want to manage DSH skills and MCP servers visually and in bulk, but skill entities and managed config still live in disk files, bundled skills are read-only, and the reference commands default to --profile web. (source)

Use cases include: many skills that need filtering by workspace and group; copying or migrating skills between workspaces in bulk; configuring MCP servers in the browser instead of editing files; and scripted operations via dsh-panel in headless environments. Notes:

1. Bundled skills that ship with the deployment are read-only and cannot be disabled or deleted; only user-added skills can be enabled/disabled, deleted, or migrated.
2. Disabling renames SKILL.md to SKILL.md.disabled and enabling renames it back; every operation is a real change to disk files, which the DSH file watcher detects immediately — hot-effective, no gateway restart.
3. MCP config is written into the managed block of the profile's cordis.patch.yml (marked by # >>> dsh-skill-mcp-panel:mcp:begin / # <<< ...end); do not hand-edit inside the block. The actual connection and tool registration is done by the official DSH plugin @deepseek-ai/dsh-mcp-client, auto-loaded by DSH HMR.
4. Reference commands default to --profile web; adjust the profile when needed, and always specify the scope explicitly on the CLI for same-named skills in multiple scopes.

Project Links

dsh-skill-viewer is an MIT-licensed open-source project maintained by fishquito7. Plugin details: dsh-skill-viewer plugin details.

This page is an independent guide rewritten from the plugin's official README — for authoritative documentation and the latest changes, please refer to the source: Fishquito7/dsh-skill-mcp-panel. A plugin is third-party code that runs on your machine at install time; inclusion is not an endorsement — review the source before installing.