Best for: Privacy-sensitive projects, offline development, reducing API costs, experimenting without usage limits.
Why Local LLMs?
Quick Start
1. Install Ollama
- macOS
- Linux
- Windows
2. Pull a Model
3. Start Ollama Server
4. Install Squads CLI
5. Configure for Local LLM
Create or update your agent to use Ollama:6. Run Your Agent
Recommended Models
For Coding
For General Tasks
Configuration Options
Squad-Level Default
Set Ollama as default for an entire squad:Agent-Level Override
Override for specific agents:Environment Variables
LM Studio Alternative
LM Studio provides a GUI for running local models with OpenAI-compatible API.Setup
- Download LM Studio from lmstudio.ai
- Download a model (e.g.,
TheBloke/CodeLlama-13B-GGUF) - Start the local server (runs on port 1234)
Configure Squads
Performance Tips
Hardware Requirements
Optimization Settings
Quantization
Lower precision = faster + less VRAM:Hybrid Setup
Use local LLMs for development, cloud for production:Troubleshooting
Model Not Loading
Out of Memory
Slow Responses
- Use quantized models (
-q4_0suffix) - Reduce context window (
--num-ctx 4096) - Ensure GPU acceleration is enabled
- Close other GPU-intensive applications
Related
Multi-LLM Usage
Mix local and cloud providers
Token Economics
Compare local vs cloud costs