A real session, unedited. Claude Code reads and edits the file, and the AI answering is running on the laptop.

Claude Code just said "you've reached your usage limit" and the reset is hours away? Keep working: same Claude Code, same project, but the AI answering runs on your own Mac.

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nicedreamzapp/claude-code-local/main/install.sh | bash

That's it. It even works on a 16 GB MacBook, and gets better the more memory your Mac has.

Once it's running, the local-first family takes it off the keyboard: your browser, your voice, your phone, all on the same machine.

Trinidad Head is the recommended terminal for running local models, on Mac and PC. It's built from scratch by the same person who made this project, and it makes long local-AI sessions nicer:

• 🪟 Glass windows with a soft neon glow, rounded and easy on the eyes
• 🌈 A different color for every window, so you can tell your local-model windows apart at a glance
• 🔠 Bigger, easy-to-read text
• 💬 Your own prompts stand out in a soft bubble, so you can find what you asked when you scroll back
• 🖱️ Copy and paste just work, even under Claude Code's calm focus view

👉 Get Trinidad Head · project page

When Claude runs out, type exit in Claude Code, then keep going. You get a short menu, and the same conversation carries on with whichever model you pick:

• ☁️ Free cloud models from OpenRouter (add a free key, see below)
• 💻 Models on your Mac from the lineup below, sized to fit your memory

setup.sh installs it for you. To add it by hand, or to turn on the free cloud models:

echo 'source "$HOME/claude-code-local/scripts/keepgoing-shell.sh"' >> ~/.zshrc   # the "keep going" command
mkdir -p ~/.config/claude-code-local
echo 'OPENROUTER_API_KEY=your-free-key' >> ~/.config/claude-code-local/keepgoing.env   # optional

Want a reminder at the bottom of every Claude window? Point your status line at scripts/statusline-keepgoing.sh. It says "💡 Out of Claude credits? Type exit, then keep going to carry on with a free or local model."

💡 Free cloud models can get busy later in the day. The models on your Mac are always there.

Your Mac has a powerful graphics chip built in. This project uses it to run big AI models right on your computer and plugs them into Claude Code, so the whole coding experience works offline: editing files, managing projects, even driving your browser or talking out loud.

The trick: Claude Code speaks one language (Anthropic's), and local AI servers usually speak another (OpenAI's). Most setups put a slow translator in between. This project's server speaks Claude Code's language directly, so there's nothing in the middle, and that's what makes it fast.

📝 You  ──▶  🤖 Claude Code  ──▶  ⚡ this server (on your Mac)  ──▶  🧠 local model  ──▶  🖥️ your Mac's chip

• 🍎 A Mac with Apple Silicon (M1 or newer)
• 🐍 Python 3.12 (setup installs it for you)
• 🤖 Claude Code: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

Setup looks at your Mac's memory and picks a model that fits:

One command:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nicedreamzapp/claude-code-local/main/install.sh | bash

Or read the script first:

git clone https://github.com/nicedreamzapp/claude-code-local
cd claude-code-local
bash setup.sh

Setup picks your model, downloads it, installs the server, and puts Claude Local.command on your Desktop. Double-click it and you're coding locally. 🎉

🐛 Asked to sign in to a Claude account? Your claude is too old. Update it: npm install -g @anthropic-ai/claude-code

# 1. Set up the MLX environment
python3.12 -m venv ~/.local/mlx-server
~/.local/mlx-server/bin/pip install mlx-lm

# 2. Pick a model and download it (one time)
bash scripts/download-and-import.sh gemma   # or 'qwen', 'gemma12', 'hermes'

# 3. Start the server
MLX_MODEL=divinetribe/gemma-4-31b-it-abliterated-4bit-mlx \
  bash scripts/start-mlx-server.sh

# 4. Launch Claude Code against it
ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:4000 \
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-local \
claude --model claude-sonnet-4-6

Same server, same Claude Code. Swap one setting and you swap the brain. Links to every build are just below the table.

Every number below was measured by us on an M5 Max (128 GB), except the rows marked vendor-reported.

Which one should I run? We test them on real agent tasks in the open: the Agent-12 leaderboard. Honest note: those scores come from Agent-12's own lean test harness (Anvil), not from inside Claude Code. Claude Code sends the model a lot more per turn, so the same model can score and time differently here.

Sizes, speeds and memory needs for every model are in the full guide.

These are the original releases and the MLX builds we have run ourselves. Credit to the teams who made them.

• Qwen 3.8 27B: Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B (original) · lmstudio-community MLX 8-bit (what setup.sh installs) · mlx-community 8-bit · mlx-community bf16 · incoai DFlash 2 drafter · Sharp chat template
• Gemma 4: google/gemma-4-31B-it · google/gemma-4-12B-it · google/gemma-4-E4B-it · mlx-community 31B 4-bit · mlx-community 31B 8-bit · mlx-community E4B 4-bit
• Hermes 4 14B: NousResearch/Hermes-4-14B
• Muse Glimmer 30B: meta-models/Muse-Glimmer-30B · mlx-community bf16
• Nemotron 3 Nano Omni: nvidia/Nemotron-3-Nano-Omni-30B-A3B-Reasoning-BF16 · mlx-community 4-bit
• Our own abliterated builds: huggingface.co/divinetribe

⚠️ "Abliterated" models have their built-in refusals turned down. That's not a general upgrade, and each model's own license still applies. Please use them responsibly.

Each one is a double-click launcher in launchers/.

The modes above aren't bolted on. Each one is its own repo that works on its own, and they all run on your hardware. If Claude Code on your own Mac was the part you wanted, this is the rest of it.

Your code never leaves your Mac. No cloud model, no tracking, no "anonymous analytics".

The launchers switch off Claude Code's own background internet traffic with Anthropic's documented settings (thanks @tadrianonet, PR #32):

CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_NONESSENTIAL_TRAFFIC=1
DISABLE_AUTOUPDATER=1
CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_OFFICIAL_MARKETPLACE_AUTOINSTALL=1
CLAUDE_CODE_DISABLE_BACKGROUND_TASKS=1

Check it yourself: during a session, lsof -p $(pgrep -f claude) shows only localhost:4000.

🧹 We removed LiteLLM after supply-chain concerns and re-checked every dependency. Anything with unexplained network calls didn't ship. The full audit is in the full guide.

☁️ The one exception is your own choice: picking a free cloud model in keep going sends that conversation to OpenRouter.

This isn't the only way to run Claude Code against models you choose, and some of these may fit you better:

• Ollama speaks the Anthropic Messages API natively since v0.14, so Claude Code can point straight at it. The simplest route if you already use Ollama, and it isn't limited to Macs.
• claude-code-router routes Claude Code's requests across many providers and models, local or cloud. Good if you want to mix models per task.
• claude-code-proxy translates Claude Code's requests to OpenAI-style APIs. Handy if your model already sits behind an OpenAI-compatible server.

What this repo adds is an MLX-native server tuned for Apple Silicon and for the tool-call formats local models actually emit.

Ideas, bug reports, a launcher for a model we don't run: open an issue or a PR, every one gets read. CONTRIBUTING.md has how to run it from the repo and the tests. We especially love hearing from people on older or smaller Macs about which models really fit.

Thank you, contributors: @0xshugo · @asdmoment · @kulveersingh · @tripathiprateek · @tadrianonet · @kevbarns · @KaoCSC · @zwolf25. What each of them fixed is in the full guide.