Get started building a local and private AI-powered desktop app.

This repo is based off the amazing chatd project from the Ollama team. Their app provides a great way to interact with files, but the core is even better: running an LLM as a standalone desktop app. I've extracted that part into this small boilerplate repo, to allow anybody to get started quickly.

Development

npm install
npm run start
npx tailwindcss -i ./src/css/index-src.css -o ./src/css/index.css --watch

Packaging and Distribution

MacOS

1. Download the latest ollama-darwin release for MacOS from here.
2. Make the downloaded binary executable: chmod +x path/to/ollama-darwin
3. Copy the ollama-darwin executable to the /src/service/ollama/runners directory.
4. Optional: The Electron app needs be signed to be able to run on MacOS systems other than the one it was compiled on, so you need a developer certificate. To sign the app, set the following environment variables:

[email protected]
APPLE_IDENTITY="Developer ID Application: Your Name (ABCDEF1234)"
APPLE_ID_PASSWORD=your_apple_id_app_specific_password
APPLE_TEAM_ID=ABCDEF1234

You can find your Apple ID, Apple Team ID, and Apple ID Application in your Apple Developer account. You can create an app-specific password here.

5. Run npm run package to package the app.

Windows

1. Build Ollama from source for Windows, this will support CPU only. See here.
2. Copy the ollama.exe executable to /src/service/ollama/runners/ollama.exe.
3. Run npm run package to package the app.

Note: The Windows app is not signed, so you will get a warning when you run it.

Linux

1. Build Ollama from source for Linux x64 to support CPU only, this allows for a smaller executable package. See here.
2. Copy the ollama executable to /src/service/ollama/runners/ollama-linux.
3. Run npm run package to package the app.