🧠⚡ Claude Code Local

Claude Code, running on your own Mac. No cloud. No API key. No waiting.

Your Mac's chip runs the AI · Claude Code works exactly like it always does · nothing leaves your computer

In one sentence: a small Python server (proxy/server.py) runs open AI models on your Mac's chip with Apple's MLX and answers Claude Code in Anthropic's own API format, so Claude Code works with no cloud model and no API key.

Other things I built that go with it are in the local-first family.

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

---

🛠️ What I built

Matt Macosko wrote the glue that makes local models usable inside Claude Code. The pieces in this repo:

• ⚡ proxy/server.py: the MLX server. Speaks the Anthropic Messages API with streaming, turns each model's own tool-call format (Gemma 4, Qwen, Llama JSON) into Claude Code tool calls, repairs garbled tool JSON, and reuses the prompt cache between turns so long sessions don't re-read everything.
• 🧪 scripts/test_parse_tool_calls.py and scripts/test_mlx_server.py: tests for the tool-call parser (no model needed) and for multi-step tool calls against a running server.
• 🏎️ agent/agent.py: the Native Engine, a one-file terminal coding agent with a short fixed system prompt so the cache survives every turn. bench/agent_bench.py reproduces its cache numbers.
• 🔋 bin/keepgoing + bin/keepgoing.py: finds your last Claude Code conversation in this folder and resumes it on a free cloud or local model.
• 🚀 install.sh, setup.sh and scripts/doctor.sh: check the Mac, pick a model that fits its memory, install everything and make a Desktop launcher.
• 🎮 launchers/ with the shared launchers/lib/claude-local-common.sh: the double-click modes below.

Upstream, not mine: Claude Code (Anthropic), MLX and mlx-lm (Apple), and the models themselves (Google, Qwen, Nous Research and the others credited below). Contributors who fixed things are named at the bottom.

---

🛑 Hit your Claude usage limit?

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.

---

🌊 Use it with Trinidad Head

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: