deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness · error · Error

dsh: ${link} exists and is not a symlink; remove it so dsh c

Error message

dsh: ${link} exists and is not a symlink; remove it so dsh can manage the installation fallback

What it means

Error "dsh: ${link} exists and is not a symlink; remove it so dsh can manage the installation fallback" thrown in deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness.

Source

Thrown at packages/boot/app-boot/src/profile.ts:182

  const patchPath = join(dir, PROFILE_PATCH_FILENAME)
  if (!existsSync(patchPath)) writeFileSync(patchPath, PROFILE_PATCH_TEMPLATE)
  const workspacePath = join(dir, 'pnpm-workspace.yaml')
  if (!existsSync(workspacePath)) writeFileSync(workspacePath, PROFILE_PNPM_WORKSPACE)
}

/** Ensure `link` is a symlink to `target`, replacing a wrong or dangling link; a real directory throws. */
function ensureSymlink(link: string, target: string): void {
  let stat
  try {
    stat = lstatSync(link)
  } catch {
    // Missing link (first run) — created below. Any other lstat failure on a
    // path we just created the parent of would resurface on symlinkSync.
    stat = undefined
  }
  if (stat !== undefined) {
    if (!stat.isSymbolicLink()) {
      throw new Error(`dsh: ${link} exists and is not a symlink; remove it so dsh can manage the installation fallback`)
    }
    if (readlinkSync(link) === target) return
    // unlink deletes the reparse point itself on Windows too; rmSync treats a
    // junction as a directory and throws EISDIR unless recursive.
    unlinkSync(link)
  }
  try {
    symlinkSync(target, link, 'junction')
  } catch (error) {
    // Concurrent launches heal the same fallback; losing the race to a
    // process writing the identical link is success, anything else is not.
    // The window between the lstat miss above and this write cannot be
    // staged deterministically from the public API.
    /* v8 ignore next 4 */
    if ((error as NodeJS.ErrnoException).code !== 'EEXIST'
      || !lstatSync(link).isSymbolicLink() || readlinkSync(link) !== target) {
      throw error
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to b150a551b8)

Solutions

1. Remove the non-symlink path so dsh can manage the installation fallback.

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at packages/boot/app-boot/src/profile.ts:182 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of deepseek-ai/deepseek-harness@b150a551b8 (2026-08-24). Data as JSON: /api/errors/8feda21a5904537e. Report an issue: GitHub.