Deepseek Harness Desktop ate 3GB then hung on a missing key
Deepseek Harness Desktop
Electron desktop client for DeepSeek Harness workflows
Tried Deepseek Harness Desktop on Friday after the API kept rate-limiting me mid-refactor.
Electron idle sat at ~3.1GB on my M2 Air. Workflows actually ran, but one hung for 11 minutes on a missing DEEPSEEK_API_KEY and the UI just spun. No toast, no stderr in the docked console.
Anyone else on this client, or am I better off staying in the CLI?
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same hang here. i ended up running
echo $DEEPSEEK_API_KEYin a separate terminal before opening the app because the desktop client never surfaces env errors.does the harness log anywhere on disk? i couldnt find a ~/.deepseek-harness folder on mac.
if the client cant find ~/.deepseek-harness that is already a smell. i checked ~/Library/Application Support and Logs — nothing with deepseek in the name either.
hung process + no log file means you debug via Activity Monitor. not acceptable even for a free tool.
Uninstalled after two nights. Memory was the dealbreaker for me — M1 Pro, 16GB, Chrome already open, and the harness alone pegged Activity Monitor.
CLI + a tiny shell wrapper has been quieter. Curious if anyone got the desktop build under 1.5GB idle.
Same conclusion. I kept the CLI and a one-line wrapper that exits if the key is empty.
Idle under 1.5GB on an M-series machine should be table stakes for an Electron shell wrapping an API client. Until then the desktop build is a demo, not a daily driver.
Sorry for english. Similar on Windows here with Electron + DeepSeek API.
Idle sat around 2.8GB before I even load a workflow. Missing key also spins forever — no toast, nothing in the console panel. I put DEEPSEEK_API_KEY in system env and restarted twice before it noticed.
For daily work I stay on Ollama + a small script. Desktop feels ok for demos only.