Ollama models

Ollama is Local Agent's only implemented inference runtime. The model picker is driven by Ollama's live inventory, including installed local weights and available Ollama Cloud aliases.

Open the inventory

Press ctrl+o or run:

/model

The picker groups entries by execution location:

• Local — model weights available on this Ollama instance.
• Cloud — aliases reserved for manual selection; under local-only policy they require exact conversation consent.
• Remote — models exposed by a non-Cloud remote host; these are visible but not selectable.

Any row can also be unavailable when blocked by runtime capability, context metadata, privacy policy, or the local memory guard.

Use d for runtime and capability details, a to open the cancellable pull form, and r to refresh the inventory.

Automatic routing and pins

The TUI starts with availability-aware automatic routing. It considers admitted local models only.

/model qwen3.5:4b   switch to and pin one model
/model auto         release the pin and resume automatic routing
/model list         print the current admitted inventory

Choosing a model from the picker also pins it. A startup --model flag and an agent profile model remain pinned until /model auto.

Local and Cloud are different boundaries

Cloud models can remain visible when privacy.local_only: true. Selecting one is a deliberate exception for the current conversation:

1. Choose the Cloud entry.
2. Review the destination and privacy boundary.
3. Confirm the exact model for this conversation.

Cloud models are never chosen by automatic routing. Consent does not change the saved local-only setting or authorize a different Cloud model.

Context windows

Local Agent reconciles the live model's native context with the configured local request limit:

• Local requests use the lower of the configured ollama.num_ctx and the model's reported native maximum.
• Cloud requests omit the local num_ctx option and display the Cloud model's reported native maximum.
• Unknown Cloud context limits fail closed instead of displaying a guessed number.

This keeps session statistics aligned with the request that was actually sent.

Suggested local tiers

Artifact sizes vary by Ollama build and quantization. The shipped guard is tuned for a 16 GB Apple-silicon machine, not measured free memory.

Model	Intended use	Auto routing
qwen3.5:0.8b	Short answers and lightweight classification	Eligible
qwen3.5:2b	Compact interactive work and modest tool chains	Eligible
phi4-mini:latest	Alternative compact reasoning profile	Fallback eligible
qwen3.5:4b	Coding, debugging, review, and multi-step tools	Eligible
qwen3.5:9b	Deeper manual profile	Exclusive
ornith:latest	Manual agentic coding and verification profile	Exclusive

Large-model admission can be overridden with LOCAL_AGENT_ALLOW_LARGE_MODELS=1, but the override does not add memory isolation or make an oversized model safe for the machine.

Troubleshooting

If the picker is empty or stale:

ollama list
curl http://localhost:11434/api/tags

Then press r in the picker. An offline refresh keeps only a previously verified safe local model; it never reclassifies a Cloud alias as local.