zlZayn/dsh-zhihu-search

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[!NOTE] Built on the official Zhihu Open Platform API, not web scraping. All search results include citable original links, and Zhihu's own results also carry their upvote counts, ensuring every model response is verifiable. Search results are text summaries only and do not include article images.

Grounded search. Cited answers. Three Zhihu tools for DSH: in-site search, global web search, and Zhida direct answers — returning a list of citable sources instead of an unverifiable summary.

Tools

Installing adds three tools to the model:

Tool	One line	Use it for
zhihu_search	Searches Zhihu's own questions and articles; sortable by votes / comments / time	Chinese experience, product reviews, industry discussion, engineering practice
zhihu_global_search	Searches Zhihu's global web index; the results mix in some Zhihu content	Finding material on a specific site
zhihu_zhida	Zhihu Zhida: a synthesized answer that pulls a topic together	Complex Chinese questions that need "retrieve, then summarize"

The three sections below are each tool's full parameter set and limits. The model only ever sees the semantic parameters in these tables — Zhihu's native string query syntax is compiled inside the plugin, so the model cannot get it wrong.

zhihu_search — in-site search

Parameter	Type	Default	Notes
query	string	required	Search keywords; works best in Chinese.
count	integer	5	Number of results, 1–10.
sortField	enum	default	default keeps relevance order; voteUpCount upvotes · commentCount comments · editTime time (published or last edited).
order	enum	desc	desc or asc. Only applies when sortField is set.
minValue	number	—	Inclusive lower bound on the sort field, requires sortField, non-negative integer. It screens the candidates retrieved by this call only: when few qualify you get fewer than count — that does not mean Zhihu has no highly upvoted content.
publishedAfter	string	—	Only content published after this date, YYYY-MM-DD.
publishedBefore	string	—	Only content published before this date, YYYY-MM-DD.

Limits: no domain filter — in-site results all come from Zhihu anyway; use zhihu_global_search to search a specific site. minValue and a non-default order require sortField, otherwise the call is rejected with a hint. No pagination: for more results change the keywords or the sort. The lower bound screens candidates: when it winnows the list the results say so, and an empty result does not mean Zhihu has no highly upvoted content.

zhihu_global_search — global web index search

Parameter	Type	Default	Notes
query	string	required	Search keywords.
count	integer	8	Number of results, 1–20 — wider than in-site.
site	string	—	Only this domain, e.g. github.com. A full URL is reduced to its host, and a leading www. is dropped.
publishedAfter	string	—	Only content published after this date, YYYY-MM-DD.
publishedBefore	string	—	Only content published before this date, YYYY-MM-DD.
searchDb	enum	all	all · realtime newest · static long-term index.

Limits: the domain is matched exactly, so subdomains must be listed separately (qq.com does not reach pages on news.qq.com), and Zhihu domains are rejected. There is no sorting parameter (the endpoint ignores sorting), and no pagination parameter. The results mix in some Zhihu content; to search Zhihu's own questions and articles specifically, use zhihu_search.

zhihu_zhida — Zhida

Parameter	Type	Default	Notes
question	string	required	The question; the more specific you are, the better.
mode	enum	thinking	fast quick answer · thinking deep reasoning · agent multi-step retrieval.
includeReasoning	boolean	false	Also return the reasoning trace. Off by default to save context; turn it on when checking an answer.

Limits: this is not a search — it returns a generated answer, not a list of sources. The answer is generated by Zhihu and may be wrong; verify anything that matters. The reasoning trace is omitted by default.

Capabilities

• The three tools do not overlap: in-site for experience, global index for material, Zhida for synthesis — the model picks by question type.
• Search returns structured source entries (title / URL / snippet / author / upvotes / comments / date), every one carrying a URL, so results can be cited and checked.
• The result text states its own boundaries: hitting the per-call cap, mixing in external pages, or a filter winnowing the candidates are all spelled out, so the tool's limits are not mistaken for the world's.
• Results render both as source cards and as plain Markdown, so they stay readable anywhere.

Install

Requirements

• DSH 0.1.7-rc.2 or newer, below 0.2.0 — the single range that package.json declares in both engines.dsh and every @deepseek-ai/dsh-* entry (the two must stay the same shape: a missing host seam makes the configuration UI disappear silently).
• Node >= 20

Install the Host from an explicit dist-tag: latest is not trustworthy across this family (on most @deepseek-ai/dsh-* packages it points at a much older version), so a default install can land outside the declared range — check it live with npm view @deepseek-ai/dsh dist-tags.

npm install -g @deepseek-ai/dsh@next    # the line this plugin commits to

Compatibility is measured, not inferred: compat.yml swaps the DSH packages onto the next line (the committed one) and the alpha line (now below our declared floor, kept as a record only) every week, and runs the existing suite. Current results and what to do when a line breaks: docs/PUBLISHING.md.

From source

git clone https://github.com/zlZayn/dsh-zhihu-search.git
cd dsh-zhihu-search
npm install && npm run build

dsh plugin --profile web add "$PWD"

dsh plugin installs the package into the profile and lists it in dsh.profile.bundles. Restart dsh --profile web to pick it up.

From npm

dsh plugin --profile web add dsh-zhihu-search

Discovery and install

• npm: dsh-zhihu-search
• GitHub: zlZayn/dsh-zhihu-search

The repository carries the GitHub topic dsh-plugin, which is how plugin marketplaces discover plugins.

Version compatibility

The configuration UI registers into the Host's plugins.bundle.config slot, and its dispatch key is this plugin's package name (the name in package.json). That slot does not hand the page a form, so the card fetches it itself from ctx.configForms.get(<loader entry id>) — configForms is a client service that arrived in 0.1.7, which is why the seam requires a Host at or above the lower bound declared by engines.dsh; that declaration is the single source of truth, and this document does not copy version numbers.

• Host is new enough: Plugins → Installed → click "Zhihu Search" to open its details page (that title comes from locale/en.json, the name shown on an English UI; the technical name dsh-zhihu-search stays right below it) — the configuration section sits inline between the description and the components list, with no extra Configure step. Both the key and the switch are edited there.
• Earlier Host (no configForms): the three tools keep working, and the Plugins page simply shows no configuration entry — silently, with no error. That is the watershed; the browser console keeps one WARN-level English note about it.
• Want in-place configuration: upgrade the Host to the version declared by engines.dsh or newer — that version currently lives on the alpha line only, so install it with npm install -g @deepseek-ai/dsh@alpha; which line points at which version is one command away: npm view @deepseek-ai/dsh dist-tags.

How to install the Host from the right line: Install → Requirements. Weekly measurements and what to do when a line breaks: docs/PUBLISHING.md.

Configuration

The configuration UI lives in the Host Plugins page's bundle configuration slot (plugins.bundle.config, keyed by package name); when it does not show up, and what happens then, is covered in Version compatibility.

On the Plugins page

Open Plugins → Installed, then click "Zhihu Search" to open its details page — the configuration section sits between the description and the components list. Enter the Access Secret and save. It takes effect immediately, with no DSH restart.

The name and the one-line description shown on the Plugins page and in Settings come from this package's language files (the meta in locale/en.json and locale/zh.json). That is display metadata only: it takes no part in loading and changes no configuration or tool, and a Host that cannot read it merely falls back to the technical name (without an error). This document therefore does not copy those two sentences — edit the language files instead.

The key goes into DSH's credential store (~/.dsh/.credentials.yaml), never into a configuration file — the active profile's Cordis patch holds only the reference name and the switch, so it is safe to screenshot or share.

Get the Access Secret from the Zhihu Open Platform profile; the config card links to the same place.

Daily quota

Quotas settle per calendar day, and the per-endpoint readings live in the Zhihu Open Platform profile — the same place you get the Access Secret. This is what that panel looks like:

Point at another credential source

The card's "Credential reference" defaults to ZHIHU_ACCESS_SECRET. Put a different name there to point elsewhere.

The key resolves through DSH's layers, highest first:

• Process environment variable (export ZHIHU_ACCESS_SECRET=…)
• Credential store (~/.dsh/.credentials.yaml)
• .env in the project directory
• ~/.dsh/.env

When a read-only source (an environment variable) supplies the reference, the card disables its input and says so — a value there cannot be overridden.

Advanced: timeouts and limits

Plugin options live in the Config of src/index.ts (edit the plugin config in cordis.patch.yml). Two timeouts are worth knowing:

• timeoutMs (default 15s): per-request budget for searches.
• streamTimeoutMs (default 55s): budget for reading a whole Zhida stream; the Zhida tool's timeout follows it automatically. Raising the request timeout never shrinks it (the larger of the two wins), so this is the one to raise.

Zhihu results only

The card's "Hide native web search (web_search / web_fetch)" switch is off by default — the plugin does not quietly remove host capabilities. Turn it on and save, and the model no longer sees DSH's native web_search and web_fetch, leaving only the three Zhihu tools.

• Applies from the next model request: no restart, no new window.
• Agents derived from that one follow the same rule.
• Visibility only: the tool-web plugin still loads, and switching it back off restores the tools.

Security and boundaries

• The Access Secret only travels between the config card, the credential scope and the environment: never logged, never in a cache key in clear text, never committed.
• Returned content is treated as untrusted external data: snippets are stripped of HTML tags, URLs of tracking parameters.
• Only developer.zhihu.com is contacted; nothing is proxied or forwarded.

License

MIT.

Contributing

External entry point (what a bug report needs, what to read before proposing a feature, what to do before opening a PR) → CONTRIBUTING_en.md.

Design stance: tool parameters and result text are an API for the model first and documentation for humans second — the writing rules live in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md under "Tool description conventions" and "Honesty of model-visible text".

Maintainer doc map in AGENTS.md; the design constraints that do not change in docs/ARCHITECTURE.md; the release process in docs/PUBLISHING.md.