DeepSeek-TUI

Integrate with DeepSeek-TUI

DeepSeek-TUI is an open-source terminal AI coding assistant built in Rust as a Codex-style 13-crate workspace. It talks to api.deepseek.com directly, supports DeepSeek-V4-Pro and DeepSeek-V4-Flash with the full 1M-token context window, and ships sandboxed tool execution on macOS (Seatbelt), Linux (Landlock), and Windows.

GitHub: https://github.com/Hmbown/DeepSeek-TUI

1. Install DeepSeek-TUI

Choose any of:

# npm (cross-platform prebuilt binaries)
npm install -g deepseek-tui

# Cargo (build from source — Rust 1.85+ required)
cargo install deepseek-tui-cli

# Or download a release binary from
#   https://github.com/Hmbown/DeepSeek-TUI/releases

Verify:

deepseek --version

2. Get a DeepSeek API Key

Get your API Key from the DeepSeek Platform. On first run, deepseek auth walks you through saving it to ~/.deepseek/config.toml. You can also set DEEPSEEK_API_KEY as an environment variable.

3. Enter a project directory and launch

cd /path/to/my-project
deepseek

deepseek is the canonical entry point. It dispatches to the interactive TUI by default, or to subcommands like deepseek doctor, deepseek mcp list, deepseek serve --http, deepseek -p "one-shot prompt", and deepseek --yolo.

By default DeepSeek-TUI uses DeepSeek-V4-Pro. Press Shift+Tab to cycle reasoning effort (off → high → max). Press Tab to cycle modes:

Mode	What it does
Plan	Read-only investigation. No mutations, no shell.
Agent	Multi-step tool use. Side-effectful tools require approval.
YOLO	Auto-approve all tools. Lifts workspace boundary.

Key shortcuts

Key	Action
`Enter`	Send the prompt
`Shift+Enter`	Insert a newline
`Tab`	Cycle TUI mode (Plan / Agent / YOLO)
`Shift+Tab`	Cycle reasoning effort (off / high / max)
`Esc`	Interrupt the current model turn
`/`	Open the slash-command menu
`?`	Show keybinding help
`Ctrl+C` (twice)	Quit

Configuration

~/.deepseek/config.toml is the main config (see config.example.toml in the repo for every option). Key environment overrides:

Variable	Description
`DEEPSEEK_API_KEY`	API key (overrides config)
`DEEPSEEK_BASE_URL`	API base URL — defaults to `https://api.deepseek.com`; use `https://api.deepseeki.com` for the China endpoint
`DEEPSEEK_MODEL`	Override default model
`DEEPSEEK_PROVIDER`	Switch provider — e.g. `nvidia-nim` (uses `NVIDIA_API_KEY`)
`RUST_LOG`	Logging verbosity (e.g. `RUST_LOG=debug`)

MCP, Skills, and Hooks

MCP servers — configure via ~/.deepseek/mcp.json or deepseek mcp add .... DeepSeek-TUI is both an MCP client and an MCP server (deepseek mcp serve).
Skills — drop a SKILL.md under ~/.deepseek/skills/<name>/ (user-level) or ./.deepseek/skills/<name>/ (project-level).
Hooks — pre/post lifecycle hooks (stdout / jsonl / webhook) configured in [hooks] in config.toml.
Sub-agents — the model can spawn child agents via agent_spawn and use the full lifecycle family (agent_wait, agent_result, agent_cancel, ...).
RLM — built-in recursive-LM tool processes oversized inputs in a sandboxed Python REPL without polluting the parent context.

HTTP runtime API

deepseek serve --http exposes a /v1/* runtime API for embedding DeepSeek-TUI in IDEs and web UIs (sessions, threads, turns, tasks, automations, MCP, skills). See docs/RUNTIME_API.md for the contract.