odysseus/specs/model-providers/deepseek.md

DeepSeek Provider Shape

Last updated: dev@2e2bb52 | 2026-08-16

Scope

Canonical provider ID deepseek; official cloud OpenAI-compatible API; curation/detection in routes/model_routes.py and runtime reasoning handling in src/llm_core.py.

Shape And Observations

Use the general model-list inventory shape; capability-looking fields remain unknown until a DeepSeek-native reader maps them. Cloud response history can use reasoning_content; preserve it structurally for reasoning turns and tool continuation (#968, #3152). deepseek-chat, reasoning models, distilled local variants, and future V4 models do not share one capability record.

Cloud endpoint evidence can support tools while a local DeepSeek-R1 deployment may not have a working tool parser. Existing tool-support tests intentionally separate official host from local engine/model-name heuristics.

Current runtime thinking-pattern detection includes DeepSeek V4 identifiers so their structured reasoning channel is handled like the other supported DeepSeek reasoning families. This name-level compatibility rule is not canonical capability evidence and does not make every V4-labelled local deployment tool-capable.

Fallback And Current Gaps

Exact *.deepseek.com selects provider identity; self-hosted checkpoints use Ollama/vLLM/SGLang/llama.cpp identity. Curated model IDs and pricing/context tables are compatibility data, not authoritative capability. A rich official model-card reader is still absent.