For the longest time, I’ve been trying to figure out a way to “survive” in this new AI age without having to fork over a ton of money just to keep up. I’ve tried using local models via Ollama, and while they definitely work to a degree, they’re (unsurprisingly) not as good as the big model providers.

The local models tend to

  • Forget what they’re doing
  • Struggle to break larger tasks into smaller ones
  • Lose focus easily
  • Have weaker coding performance
  • Drift over longer sessions

So to improve the reliability of fully local, smaller models (and to keep all my data local and in my own network), I created Loki.

It’s a local-first, batteries-included command line tool and runtime for building and running LLM workflows locally. It’s model agnostic and supports things like

  • Agents and agent delegation
  • Roles/personas
  • MCP Servers
  • RAG
  • Custom tools
  • Macros
  • Workflow Scripting

A lot of the features it supports are specifically designed to compensate for weaknesses in smaller local models. For example:

  • Auto continuation to keep pushing models to completion instead of stopping halfway through problems
  • Parallel agent delegation so tasks can be split into smaller, focused scopes
  • Workflow-based execution (“If this, do that”) for building more reliable and repeatable automations

It also supports the major cloud providers if you want them (which definitely helped while testing 😄), but my long-term goal is simple:

Get as close as possible to Claude Code-style reliability using fully local models.

I’m always open to feedback, questions, or ideas.

Repo: https://github.com/Dark-Alex-17/loki

    • Dark-Alex-17@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      3·
      2 hours ago

      OpenCode is specific to coding workflows. Loki is built to be a general LLM runtine/workflow engine for any problem domain, not just code. An example use I have for it is a cron job that runs at boot to

      • See if the cause of the reboot was power loss (LLM)
      • If it was, check all services to ensure they’re up and running (tool)
      • If a service isn’t up, then use an LLM to see what happened (LLM)
      • Try out the usual methods for getting that service started (tool + RAG)
      • If none of those work, try figuring out what’s ultimately wrong (LLM)
      • Send me a ntfy notification on my phone to let me know what service isn’t running, and the suspected cause with some context (tool)
    • naught@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3·
      2 hours ago

      Opencode isn’t very fun to set up with local LLMs and I’ve had issues with tool calling, but it’s very doable! That said, OpenCode is my go-to, absolutely love it compared to all alternatives I’ve tried

      • Dark-Alex-17@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
        1·
        2 hours ago

        When it comes to writing code, OpenCode is my go-to as well. It’s my ultimate benchmark for how well optimized and reliable I can make local models function in Loki.

    • Meron35@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      2 hours ago

      Ditto. I don’t see how this is different/better from existing harnesses such as Opencode, Pi, and even “commercial” open source offerings such as the CLIs for Codex, Copilot, and Gemini, especially once tricked out with plugins and extensions.