Offline

localcode is local-first. After a model is on disk, the things you use most work with no connection. A few features still need the network.

Works offline

• Model inference, while runtime.base_url points at the local server.
• Reading, editing and writing files.
• grep, glob, list_files, code navigation and symbol inspection.
• Shell commands that do not reach the network.
• Syntax checks and your repo’s own test and lint commands.
• Session resume and the project event log.

Needs the network

• The first model download. This is the one blocking step - do it before going offline.
• Browsing other quantisations in the model picker (cached results still show).
• web_search and web_fetch.
• Remote MCP servers, and any shell command that downloads something.
• Enabling voice for the first time (it downloads speech models).

Preparing for an offline session

1. Start localcode once while connected and let the recommended model finish downloading.
2. Run /status to confirm the server is healthy and the model is loaded.
3. Install any project dependencies first - a pip install or npm install fails offline like any other network command.

When offline, web_search and web_fetch return errors. The agent uses the failed result as context and keeps going. See Network Boundary for every path that uses the network.