The owner's verdict on the chooser: nice, but not nice enough, too much just
blue. He also wants "Run a local model" on top of the start screen, above
Run Claude Code.
The memory bar is now a map: the model, its context and the brief peaks side
by side on the track of what this Mac can give a model, each with its size in
a legend, and the verdict on the fit beside the figure. recommend() sends what
the need is made of as `Candidate.memory`.
Colour now carries meaning: green for good and tested, amber for tight, orange
for slow, teal for the context. Violet is the feature's own colour, on its
start screen button and its main action. Every row has a size tile and a speed
gauge scaled to the fastest row in the list. The light skins get deeper values
of the same colours, and the window is 40 px taller to hold it without
scrolling.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The window is one frame for the whole flow: a fixed height on desktop, App
Settings' boxed close button, the buttons in a foot of their own outside
the part that scrolls, so a click never moves the next button away and
nothing is cut off; the short screens are centred in it on desktop and sit
above the buttons on a phone.
The chooser lists the pick first and then the other models by download
size, largest first, a column the reader can see. A pick that only just
fits says "Best fit, tight". The memory figure is an estimate and says so
once, in whole GB; its legend names the peak, and the installed line uses
the same words beside what the model takes now, so the two figures are not
read as a contradiction. The legend, the column headers and the foot's
promise are set in --text-dim, the bar's track in --text-muted so its free
part can be seen, and only the download figure keeps tabular figures.
The consent screen is the download as a table: the chosen row, the runtime,
the coding agent with its installer's command as the row's second line, the
total in the strong weight, then where it goes in one line. The download bar
means the model download alone and is gone once the model is in; the screen
that ends an install shows "Start a session" alone; an error on an installed
model is the headline with a grey dot; an error's first sentence is the
headline; Remove is quiet everywhere but red in its own question. The
no-recommendation reasons are one sentence each, and the untested note is
in Codeman's voice. A refusal the server names is printed from its sentence.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The catalogue rows carry the figures measured on a Mac (the MLX build of
qwen3.6:35b-a3b is 23,105,798,956 bytes, about 37 KB held per context token,
about 3 GB of runner overhead, about 5 GB more for a moment while a long
prompt is processed). A model's need is now its peak. Rows that were not
measured use the same per-token and overhead figures and say `estimated`.
qwen3.6:35b-a3b gets the tested entry for an Apple M5 Pro with 48 GB and
OpenCode, with its measured 67.7 tokens per second, so that row may say
"Tested on a Mac like this".
The ranking changes with it: a pair tested on a Mac like this one comes
first, then speed (ok, unknown, slow), then model rank, harness rank and the
larger context. The fit grade decides whether a row is listed and what it
says, it no longer sorts, so a model is offered at the largest context it
fits at. recommend() takes the budget the runtime measured
(`budgetSource: measured`), and modelFitsBudget() judges one model against it.
Candidate rows now always carry `needSource`, `harnesses`, `installBytes`,
`installGb` and, where one applies, `tag`. `kvBytesPerToken` and the prompt
cache tiers are gone.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Review fixes for the read-only recommendation and its card.
Recommendation (pure):
- `limited` is now a statement about the Mac: no model with 12 billion
parameters or more fits. It is judged on everything that fits, before
the disk filter and whatever the pick is. A 32 or 36 GB Mac whose pick
is a 9B model no longer reads "This Mac can run a small model" above a
list of 20B, 27B and 35B models, and knowing the chip no longer lowers
the verdict. A small pick under `ok` carries a note that says so.
- A model that fits the memory but has no room on the disk is no longer
dropped in silence: the best-ranked one is named in a note with the GB
that are missing. A full disk cannot turn a 48 GB Mac into a
small-model Mac.
- "Models fit, but not at a context a harness needs" has its own
sentence with the budget and the need, worded as an estimate. The
16 GB Mac mini misses by 1.3 points (10.3 of 10.4 GB) and was told
flatly that its memory is too little, the sentence of an 8 GB Mac.
- The installed memory is named by the size the Mac is sold as (48, not
51.5): the hardware line and the memory sentence. Every computed size
stays decimal GB from the one formatter. An unknown memory size is no
longer reported as "0.0 GB".
- Slow is graded on the unrounded speed: 9.95 to 9.9996 tokens per
second printed as 10 and read ok.
- The disk sentence names the 10 GiB that must stay free, so its
numbers add up for the reader.
Card and Settings group:
- The Settings group "Model on this Mac" is hidden on a server that is
not a Mac, and until the first answer says it is one.
- Only `403 FORBIDDEN` is a refusal. `403 PASSWORD_CHANGE_REQUIRED`
(an admin who must change the password) is a failed request and is
asked again, so that admin no longer loses the card until a reload.
- Each fit and speed label carries what it measures as its tooltip and
accessible name, an alternative with a speed estimate prints it, and
the count beside "Other models that fit" is gone (it was the number
of rows, capped at four, not the number of models that fit).
- The line saying nothing can be set up yet sits right under the pick,
in the colour of every other line (it was 3.9:1), and says whose step
it is.
- The dismissal key is named for this stage, so hiding the read-only
card does not hide the install offer later.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
The core of the read-only recommendation: what this Mac is, what the catalogue
knows, and which model fits. Nothing is downloaded, installed or written.
- hardware.ts: one bounded async spawn of /usr/sbin/sysctl with seven keys,
without -n, parsed as "key: value" lines by the pure parseSysctl(). Free disk
of the data dir through statfs behind the bounded path probe. Fallbacks from
node:os, a 60 s cache, never throws, never system_profiler. A wired limit of
0 means "not set".
- local-model-catalog.ts: seven models, three harness rows (pi gated) and the
chips table as a compiled constant, validated by a Zod schema on first use.
No override file. Model ids are name:tag in lowercase without a slash; every
model carries paramsB and an (empty) tested list. Chip names match on the
end of the chip string, so 'M4' is not the chip of 'Apple M4 Pro'.
- recommend.ts: device budget (the wired limit when above 0, else 2/3 of
memory below 36 GB and 3/4 from 36 GB, less the reserve), need = weights +
KV cache + 1 GiB + prompt cache, fit good up to 0.85 and tight up to 0.98,
speed ok, unknown or slow (a chip in no chips row is unknown), and the
ranking. Verdicts ok, limited (best model under 12 billion parameters) and
none with its reason. "Recommended" only for a pick with a tested entry for
this Mac, which no row has today.
- types/local-model.ts: comments brought in line with the code (chip matching,
budgetShare rounding, a budget of 0 on an Intel Mac).
- cli-registry-no-id-branching.test.ts: the guard also catches a comparison of
a `cli` field with a CLI id (plus one stray blank line Prettier refused).
Tests: test/local-model-format.test.ts, test/local-model-hardware.test.ts
(the captured output of two real Macs), test/local-model-catalog.test.ts,
test/local-model-recommend.test.ts.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Codeman maintainer