Plugin install failed: “incompatible with dsh”

What the error means

dsh: installation rejected: Plugin dsh-better-sidebar@0.28.0 is incompatible with dsh 0.2.0-rc.2: peerDependencies {"@deepseek-ai/dsh-tools":"^0.2.1-rc.1", …}. Running it may cause crashes or data loss. …
dsh: nothing was installed.

Since 0.2.0-rc.1, published on 28 September 2026, DeepSeek Harness checks a plugin's declared dsh range before it installs anything. It reads engines.dsh from the plugin's package.json; a plugin without one is checked against every @deepseek-ai/dsh* peer dependency instead. When the running dsh falls outside that range, DeepSeek Harness refuses and rolls the profile back. Most plugins written in August declare a range such as ^0.1.0-rc.6, which contains no 0.2 release at all.

Two things about it catch people out:

• The whole command is refused. dsh plugin add a b c installs nothing if any one of the three is out of range — which is how a working set of plugins can fail as a set.
• It is about versions, not quality. The same plugin can install on one DeepSeek Harness release and be refused by the next. Updating the harness can cause it, and updating the harness can also be the fix.

How common it is

So far we have run 1,236 plugins on DeepSeek Harness 0.2.0-rc.2, each in a throwaway sandbox against a clean profile. 190 of them were refused at this check, and for 42 of those an older release installed cleanly on the same dsh. The rest of the catalogue is being re-run; these numbers update as it lands.

Fixes, easiest first

1. Let the CLI pick the release. npx dshmarketplace-cli add <plugin> reads your dsh version and installs the newest release your harness accepts, by the same rule the harness applies. It works for several plugins at once, and for the presets.
2. Pin a release yourself. Every listing we have run on the current dsh shows the release that installed, with its command — for example dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-better-sidebar@0.26.1. The table below lists the most-starred ones.
3. Force it, knowingly. The error itself prints an exact-version exemption: dsh plugin --profile web allow-version <name>@<version> --dsh-version <your dsh> --accept-risk. DeepSeek Harness's own warning stands — running it may cause crashes or data loss — so keep it for a plugin with no compatible release whose source you have read.
4. Update, or wait. Sometimes the latest release needs a newer dsh than you run: dsh-better-sidebar 0.28.0 asks for ^0.2.1-rc.1, so updating DeepSeek Harness fixes that one. Otherwise the author has to widen the range.

If you maintain a plugin

Declare engines.dsh in package.json, covering every DeepSeek Harness release you have tested. From 0.2.1 the harness reads it before the peer ranges, and a declared engines.dsh decides compatibility on its own — so it is the one field that controls whether your plugin installs. Your listing here shows what our sandbox saw on the current dsh, and the install check explains how it runs.

Other ways an install goes wrong

• It “succeeded” and nothing appeared. dsh plugin installs into a profile, and without --profile it has none to install into. Every command in this catalogue carries --profile web; swap in your profile name if you run another.
• pnpm refused a build script. pnpm will not run a package's build script until it is allowlisted, and until then the harness may never register the plugin. Add the key pnpm prints to allowBuilds in the profile's pnpm-workspace.yaml and run the command again — or let dshmarketplace-cli do it.
• A GitHub install stops at its prepare script. A source install builds the plugin on your machine, which pnpm blocks the same way. Same fix; or install the npm package if the listing offers one.

Most-starred plugins refused on DeepSeek Harness 0.2.0-rc.2