How-To Series · 8: Provider Plumbing

Local Models

Run open models entirely on your own computer from the Hermes desktop app: no account, no API key, and no context sizes, GPU layers or quantization to tune.

After this videoYou can run a model fully on your own machine from the desktop app or the terminal, and you know whether it fits before you download it.

Local Models is on by default in the Hermes desktop app on macOS, Windows and Linux. Hermes downloads and manages the llama.cpp engine, picks the build of each model that fits your hardware, and manages memory end to end. Open Settings, Providers, Local Models, click Install runtime, download a model from the catalog, and click Use; new chats then run locally, and going back to a cloud provider is one click in the model picker. From a terminal, hermes model then Local models runs the same setup. Every catalog row is priced against your machine: green fits your GPU, amber uses system RAM and runs slower, red is too big. Hermes never offers builds below 4-bit, starts each model at a context window that fits and grows it as the chat needs room, gives every recommended model at least a 64K window, and unloads idle models after 15 minutes. Find more models searches all of Hugging Face, Add model file links a .gguf you already have without copying it, and a llama-server you already run is detected and used. Once a model is downloaded, nothing leaves your computer.

About these resources. Every command and setting in this video comes from the Local Models doc. For manual Ollama or Apple Silicon setups, see the two related episodes below.

New words here · Plain English

one sentence each · full glossary
Local ModelsThe part of the Hermes desktop app that runs open models on your own computer. It installs the engine, picks a build that fits your hardware, and manages memory for you.
llama.cppThe open-source engine Hermes uses to run local models. Local Models downloads, verifies, and updates it for you.
QuantizationA way to shrink a model by storing its numbers with fewer bits. Smaller builds need less memory but lose some quality; Hermes never goes below 4-bit.
GGUFThe file format local models come in for llama.cpp. Add model file links a .gguf you already have into Hermes without copying it.

Sources · What this video distills

1 docs page · every command below traces to it
Primary guide
Local Models
Read ↗

Commands shown · Copy and paste

each shows the source doc it came from
Same setup from a terminal: choose Local modelsfrom source ↗
hermes model
config.yaml: probe an extra port for your own llama-server (default probe is :8080)from source ↗
local_runtime: { backend: auto, detect_ports: [8081] }

Going deeper · Related Hermes docs

further reading · not sources of facts shown above

Next in the series · Episodes that build on this