Debate: Should agent harnesses make everything a third-party plugin?

dotey · x · 2026-08-18

@desenmeng argues "everything as plugins" works as an internal architecture principle—generic engines get eroded by product-specific hacks, so DSH making Agent Loop, Session, Tool Runtime, LLM, Sandbox and UI recomposable is the right direction.
But that doesn't mean all internal logic should become third-party extension points. Pi, VS Code and DSH all have plugin conflicts (same-name tools, event interception); the real difference is which layer plugins may touch and whether the platform pre-defines how changes compose. VS Code uses Contribution Points and stable interfaces to contain conflicts; Pi is more open but keeps a fixed coding-agent core.
The quoted @ewinddev adds history: this runtime-extensible plugin model traces back to AFFiNE's architecture (DI + rxjs lifecycle management), where any logic is by default extensible—unlike VS Code's curated extension points—and notes DeepSeek has since offered a mathematical proof of the idea.

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