DeepSeek Harness with Claude Code: Integrate or Migrate

DeepSeek's own positioning is that dsh is 'less a competitor, more a framework that can sit above them' — you can call Claude Code or Codex as a subagent from inside dsh^[1]. That opens two practical setups: run both in parallel, or migrate fully.

The parallel setup keeps your existing Claude Code muscle memory and adds dsh where its strengths pay off: model freedom, full traceability, and plugin-level customization. The migration path moves your workflows to dsh and closes the Claude subscription^[2].

Either way, the mechanics are the same: both tools speak the same kinds of protocols, and dsh's ACP/MCP channels make the handoff explicit.

dsh can treat Claude Code (and Codex) as callable subagents, so you delegate the model-specific work while dsh owns orchestration^[1].

This is the 'sit above them' architecture: dsh is the chassis, Claude Code is one of the tools plugged in. Teams that cannot drop Anthropic for certain workloads (long-form reasoning, specific tooling) use this hybrid to keep one runtime.

• dsh orchestrates; Claude Code executes model-specific tasks as a subagent
• You keep Claude Code's strengths without abandoning the harness
• The subagent pattern is a first-class plugin capability, not a hack

If you want the reverse — drive dsh from a client you already use — the community ACP plugin exposes dsh as an Agent Client Protocol server, and ACP-capable editors (Cursor, Zed, JetBrains) connect to it^[3].

# Install the ACP channel and start the stdio server
dsh plugin --profile acp add @jeremy9682/dsh-acp
dsh --profile acp

# Point your ACP client at the server; dsh now appears
# alongside or instead of Claude Code in the same editor

For teams moving from Claude Code to dsh, here is the practical order^[2][4].

• Install dsh and open the Web UI (npx @deepseek-ai/dsh web)
• Add your model provider (DeepSeek first; add others later)
• Port MCP servers — dsh uses MCP via plugins (see MCP setup)
• Recreate Agent Skills as dsh skills plugins
• Re-map your keybindings/scripts to dsh --profile headless
• Run two weeks of parallel A/B on real repos before dropping the subscription

A fair migration comparison lists what you lose as well as what you gain.

The 262 MiB story matters here too: early dsh rcs shipped bundled Claude Code components that were later removed. If you find Claude Code internals inside a dsh install, you are on an old rc — upgrade^[2].