Uninstall DeepSeek Harness: DSH plugin leftovers & purge

Uninstalling deepseek harness is one job no matter which English phrase you searched — "uninstall", "how to uninstall" and "remove" all point to the same action, and the real trouble sits outside the command: where the leftovers land and whether they should be cleared. This guide folds those English search variants into a single answer, then follows the directories on your machine to explain where the residue goes, and why uninstalling only touches the program layer while wiping data and deleting a session are two separate jobs.

Overview: uninstalling, deleting a session and purging are three different things

One sentence first: uninstalling touches the program, deleting a session touches logs, purging touches the whole user data directory — none of them replaces another. DeepSeek Harness keeps its program files, session logs and configuration in separate places, so although the English search terms all carry "uninstall", the operation they land on may be one of three different things (source):

Once you can read this table, the three directions below will not blur "remove the program" into "delete the data".

Uninstall, how-to-uninstall and remove all mean one action

uninstall deepseek harness, how to uninstall deepseek harness, deepseek harness uninstall and remove deepseek harness are the same search intent — take DeepSeek Harness off the machine — and the answer depends on how you installed it. In package-manager wording, uninstall and remove are synonyms: npm uses uninstall (aliases remove, rm) and pnpm uses remove, both meaning "take the package out of the dependencies and delete the executable links it registered" (source). Match your install first:

Run them in order; every step lists its expected result:

1. Quit every running process first — close dsh web in the terminal or the desktop app window. Expected: nothing holds a port any more (web defaults to 3080; the desktop build uses an OS-assigned random port and will not collide with 3080).
2. For a global npm install, run the uninstall command:

npm uninstall -g @deepseek-ai/dsh

Expected: the terminal prints removed ... packages, and npm ls -g --depth=0 no longer lists @deepseek-ai/dsh. 3. For the desktop app, remove the CLI it registered first — open the app menu and click Manage dsh Command… → Remove. Expected: the /usr/local/bin/dsh link is gone on macOS and the entry in the current user's PATH is deleted on Windows, without affecting a dsh installed from another source (source). 4. Then uninstall the desktop app itself — drag it to the Trash on macOS, or use Settings → Apps → Installed apps → Uninstall on Windows. Expected: the app disappears; if it is still running, the Windows uninstaller asks you to quit it from the system tray first. 5. For a source build, delete the repository directory:

rm -rf ~/deepseek-harness   # substitute your own path

Expected: the directory is gone and no build artifacts remain on the machine. 6. Verify the program layer — open a fresh terminal and run dsh --version. Expected: command not found (or "'dsh' is not recognized" on Windows), which means the command entry is clean.

The complete walkthrough for all three install styles is in how to uninstall DeepSeek Harness; the error-troubleshooting for the npm and pnpm channels is in npm uninstall DSH.

Where the leftovers go after uninstalling

The uninstall command only touches the program layer; everything under $DSH_HOME (default ~/.dsh) — configuration, sessions, profiles and node_modules — stays exactly where it was, and that is the entire source of "I removed it but there is still stuff on disk". The residue lives in five places (source):

Locate and clean them:

1. Confirm the real data-directory path — run echo $DSH_HOME (on Windows, echo %DSH_HOME%). Expected: if it prints a path, use it; an empty result means the default ~/.dsh.
2. See what session logs remain — ls "$DSH_HOME/sessions". Expected: it lists per-project --...-- directories; if you have never written a session the directory will not exist, which is normal.
3. See where plugin dependencies live — ls "$DSH_HOME/profiles". Expected: it lists profile directories such as web and headless, each with its own node_modules.
4. To clear npx residue:

rm -rf ~/.npm/_npx

Expected: the npx temp environment is emptied; the next npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web downloads again and no user data is lost. 5. To clear only chat history and keep config and plugins — stop dsh first, then delete just the sessions directory:

cp -r "$DSH_HOME/sessions" "$DSH_HOME/sessions.bak" && rm -rf "$DSH_HOME/sessions"

Expected: a backup lands before deletion, and configuration, keys and plugin dependencies are untouched.

The layer-by-layer cleanup (config overlays, the pnpm store) is detailed in uninstall leftovers.

Uninstalling DeepSeek Harness only touches the program layer; wiping data and deleting a session are another article

The uninstall command removes only the program itself; everything under $DSH_HOME — configuration, sessions and DSH plugin dependencies — stays exactly where it was, and whether to go on and delete a session or wipe the whole data directory is two separate jobs this article does not cover. In other words, uninstalling is not wiping: a "factory-fresh" state means deleting the whole data directory after uninstalling the program, and that last step is irreversible with no recycle bin. The boundary table across uninstalling, deleting a session and wiping data, plus when to wipe, how to do it at the file layer and what a mistake costs, all live in dsh purge vs uninstall — jump there when you need them.

Rather than running list, remove and manual leftover-directory checks one by one in the terminal, manage plugins visually with a confirmation dialog — DSH Plugin Hub keeps installed plugins, their sources, versions and the uninstall entry in one panel, and pops a confirmation dialog showing the plugin and its source before anything is removed, so you do not delete the wrong thing.

Things to watch out for

1. Pass the package name to the uninstall command: npm uninstall -g @deepseek-ai/dsh. Writing dsh fails because no package has that name.
2. Do not miss the CLI registration for the desktop build: run Manage dsh Command… → Remove before uninstalling the Electron app, or /usr/local/bin/dsh lingers forever.
3. The data directory is out of scope for uninstalling: no uninstall command touches $DSH_HOME; whether to delete it is your call, and back it up first.
4. Multiple installs uninstall "incompletely": with nvm each Node version carries its own global package; check them one by one with which -a dsh before you confirm.

Sources: dsh CLI README, @deepseek-ai/dsh on npm, deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness