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openlocal

Open tools. Local brains. Zero cloud.

A tool belt that small local models can actually use β€” and the receipts to prove it.

CI PyPI Python Dependencies License


pip install openlocal
openlocal quickstart

That's it. quickstart finds the model server you already run β€” ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, vLLM β€” writes your config, measures which tool-calling protocol your model can actually drive, and runs a real task so you see it work:

$ openlocal quickstart
openlocal quickstart - looking for a model server...
found ollama at http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1 with 6 model(s)
wrote ~/.openlocal/models.toml
default model: qwen3-4b  (served as qwen3:4b)
measuring which tool protocol this model can drive...
  -> native tool calling

demo: Read notes.md and tell me how many lines it has.
  tool     file_read
  final

  The file notes.md has 3 lines.

You are set up. Try:
  openlocal run "list the files here and summarise what this project is"
  openlocal eval          # score this model on 15 deterministic tool tasks
  openlocal mcp           # serve these tools to Claude Code over MCP

Why openlocal

πŸͺΆ Zero dependencies

Pure standard library. Installs in seconds, runs on a Raspberry Pi, and can't be broken by somebody else's release.

πŸ”Œ Works with what you have

Anything that speaks the OpenAI /v1 API. One URL, no adapters, no accounts.

πŸ“Š Measured, not claimed

10 models from 9 vendors, scored on 17 deterministic tasks. No LLM judge β€” every check is a file diff or a regex.

🧰 One registry, two surfaces

The same 8 tools power an MCP server (Claude Code, any MCP client) and a local-model agent loop.

🩹 Tuned on real failures

Every ergonomic rule here was paid for by a model breaking. The lessons table is the part you can't get anywhere else.

🧩 Add a vendor by editing TOML

New model family? Edit families.toml, run openlocal probe, send a PR. No Python needed.

Related MCP server: Hermes MCP Server

The leaderboard

Same tasks, same tools, one model at a time, two runs each. tools is the protocol each model was measured driving β€” not the one its docs claim.

model

vendor

tools

passed

pass rate

bad json

tok/s

qwen3.8-4b

Alibaba

native

17/17

100%

0

40.4

glm-4.7-flash

z.ai

native

17/17

100%

0

39.9

qwen3.8-27b

Alibaba

native

17/17

100%

0

16.6

nemotron-nano-4b

NVIDIA

native

16/17

94%

0

54.9

gemma-4-e4b

Google

native

16/17

94%

0

50.3

gpt-oss-20b

OpenAI

native

16/17

94%

2ΒΉ

45.3

granite-4.1-3b

IBM

native

15/17

88%

4

66.0

llama-3.1-8b

Meta

native

14/17

85%

2

33.4

mistral-small-3.2

Mistral

native

14/17

82%

0

11.1

phi-4-mini

Microsoft

native

13/17

79%

0

61.5

ΒΉ gpt-oss's harmony parser rejects some of its own tool calls (llama.cpp answers 500). The client's retry ladder recovers every one β€” the retries column in RESULTS.md keeps that honest.

Reproduce it: openlocal leaderboard --repeat 2

Why your small model fails at tools

A 3B model doesn't fail because it's stupid. It fails because tool output is a prompt, and most tool output is written for humans. Everything below was measured β€” kept when the score went up, reverted when it didn't.

what broke

the fix

measured effect

"What is line 300?" β†’ model answered line 311

number every line: 300| row 300

fixed in one turn, across models

Model walked a 500-line file one line per turn

footers state facts, never commands ("file continues" β‰  "call again with…")

phi: 12 wasted steps β†’ 2

Prose instead of a tool call

prose with no tool = the final answer (native only)

phi: 51 malformed replies β†’ 5

…but "Sure, I'll use file_grep" is a plan

intent detection: plans get nudged, answers get accepted

runs stopped ending on intentions

file_read(notes.md) typed as text

prose call-syntax is parsed and executed

wasted turns eliminated

{"limit": None}, trailing junk, split objects

JSON repair: brace scan, tail closing, Python literals, fragment merge

phi bad_json 5 β†’ 0

Model wrote the file before reading the source

stale-write detection at finish time

llama: 13 β†’ 15 / 15

Model guessed "44" and repeated it when nudged

one turn of tool_choice: "required"

granite recovered the task

Read a 4-line CSV perfectly, said the sum was 40

a calc tool β€” and a guard so it can't be used before reading

granite: +2 tasks

Wrote the output file without ever reading the source

thin-air-write detection at finish time

qwen-4b over MCP recovered

Copied the N| reference prefixes into edit targets

file_edit strips them when the raw text does not match

edit_code: 10/10 models pass

Same call, forever (A→B→A→B)

repeat guard replays the cached result

llama pagination loop gone

Server 500s on its own tool-call syntax

retry ladder: as-asked β†’ warmer β†’ same turn without tools

gpt-oss: 11/15 β†’ 14/15

Reverted: one more system-prompt rule

β€”

granite 12/15 β†’ 11/15. Fewer rules win.

MCP is a first-class citizen, not a wrapper

openlocal eval --via-mcp reruns the whole eval suite with the tools served over a real stdio MCP server β€” schemas crossing the wire, results as content blocks, a subprocess per task. The scores match the in-process numbers, which is the point: what Claude Code experiences is what was measured.

Use it from Claude Code (or any MCP client)

pip install "openlocal[mcp]"
claude mcp add openlocal -- openlocal mcp

The same 10 tools your local model uses, now in Claude Code. finish stays behind β€” it's loop control, not a capability.

Commands

openlocal quickstart              # find a server, configure, probe, demo
openlocal run "goal"              # agent loop over your tools
openlocal run "goal" --url http://host:1234/v1     # no config at all
openlocal chat "hello"            # one plain turn, no tools
openlocal tools                   # what the model can call
openlocal probe                   # measure native vs JSON tool calling
openlocal eval                    # 17 deterministic tasks, pass/fail
openlocal eval --via-mcp          # same tasks, tools served over a REAL MCP server
openlocal leaderboard --repeat 2  # every configured model, one table
openlocal mcp                     # stdio MCP server
openlocal models / serve / stop / status / pull    # local llama-server management

smol is a shorter alias for the same CLI.

Configuration

Your workspace is ~/.openlocal (or any directory containing models.toml, or $OPENLOCAL_HOME). It holds models.toml, state.json, logs, downloads and eval results β€” never the installed package.

[engine.ollama]
type = "external"
base_url = "http://127.0.0.1:11434/v1"

[[model]]
id = "qwen"
engine = "ollama"
family = "qwen"              # tells openlocal this vendor's tool-calling quirks
served_model = "qwen3:4b"    # the exact name the backend knows
default = true

env

default

meaning

OPENLOCAL_HOME

~/.openlocal

workspace directory

OPENLOCAL_BASE_URL

–

point every command at one /v1 server

SMOL_ROOT

cwd

sandbox root for the file and shell tools

SMOL_MAX_CHARS

8000

hard cap on one tool result

SMOL_SHELL_ALLOW

dev commands

comma list, or *

SMOL_TOOL_TIMEOUT

120

seconds before an MCP tool call is abandoned

The tools

file_list(path=".")                       list files and folders
file_read(path, start_line=1, limit=200)  read a file, one page at a time
file_write(path, content)                 write a file
file_edit(path, find, replace)            replace text exactly, leave the rest alone
file_append(path, content)                add to the end without touching what exists
file_grep(pattern, path=".")              search files
web_search(query, limit=5)                search the web (DuckDuckGo, or Tavily via key)
web_read(url, offset=0, max_chars=4000)   read a page as text
shell_run(command, timeout=60)            run one allowlisted command
calc(expression)                          exact arithmetic - models cannot count
finish(answer)                            agent loop only: end the task

House rules, enforced by tests: flat arguments with defaults, an example call in every description, one-line result headers, hard-capped output with a truthful continuation hint, and errors that name the next move β€” no such file: x - call file_list(".") to see the files that exist.

Architecture

tools/          one registry  β†’  mcp_server.py   (Claude Code speaks MCP to it)
                              β†’  agent.py        (a local model calls the same tools)
_http.py        the entire network layer, on urllib (this is why deps = 0)
runner.py       external servers, or llama-server processes it starts and owns
protocol.py     native tool_calls β†’ loose JSON β†’ repair β†’ symptom-specific nudge
families.toml   per-vendor quirks as DATA - the file contributors edit
evals/          17 deterministic tasks + a leaderboard across models

Contributing

Adding a model family takes no Python: edit families.toml, add your model to models.toml, then

openlocal probe --model your-model
openlocal eval  --model your-model

and paste the resulting row into the PR. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Running local GGUF models on AMD hardware (ROCmFP4 + MTP speculative decoding) is documented in docs/ENGINE.md β€” optional, and not needed for anything above.

License

MIT Β© DevXV3

A
license - permissive license
Not graded
quality - not tested
C
maintenance

Maintenance

–Maintainers
–Response time
–Release cycle
–Releases (12mo)
Commit activity

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