* feat(backend): add turboquant llama.cpp-fork backend
turboquant is a llama.cpp fork (TheTom/llama-cpp-turboquant, branch
feature/turboquant-kv-cache) that adds a TurboQuant KV-cache scheme.
It ships as a first-class backend reusing backend/cpp/llama-cpp sources
via a thin wrapper Makefile: each variant target copies ../llama-cpp
into a sibling build dir and invokes llama-cpp's build-llama-cpp-grpc-server
with LLAMA_REPO/LLAMA_VERSION overridden to point at the fork. No
duplication of grpc-server.cpp — upstream fixes flow through automatically.
Wires up the full matrix (CPU, CUDA 12/13, L4T, L4T-CUDA13, ROCm, SYCL
f32/f16, Vulkan) in backend.yml and the gallery entries in index.yaml,
adds a tests-turboquant-grpc e2e job driven by BACKEND_TEST_CACHE_TYPE_K/V=q8_0
to exercise the KV-cache config path (backend_test.go gains dedicated env
vars wired into ModelOptions.CacheTypeKey/Value — a generic improvement
usable by any llama.cpp-family backend), and registers a nightly auto-bump
PR in bump_deps.yaml tracking feature/turboquant-kv-cache.
scripts/changed-backends.js gets a special-case so edits to
backend/cpp/llama-cpp/ also retrigger the turboquant CI pipeline, since
the wrapper reuses those sources.
* feat(turboquant): carry upstream patches against fork API drift
turboquant branched from llama.cpp before upstream commit 66060008
("server: respect the ignore eos flag", #21203) which added the
`logit_bias_eog` field to `server_context_meta` and a matching
parameter to `server_task::params_from_json_cmpl`. The shared
backend/cpp/llama-cpp/grpc-server.cpp depends on that field, so
building it against the fork unmodified fails.
Cherry-pick that commit as a patch file under
backend/cpp/turboquant/patches/ and apply it to the cloned fork
sources via a new apply-patches.sh hook called from the wrapper
Makefile. Simplifies the build flow too: instead of hopping through
llama-cpp's build-llama-cpp-grpc-server indirection, the wrapper now
drives the copied Makefile directly (clone -> patch -> build).
Drop the corresponding patch whenever the fork catches up with
upstream — the build fails fast if a patch stops applying, which
is the signal to retire it.
* docs: add turboquant backend section + clarify cache_type_k/v
Document the new turboquant (llama.cpp fork with TurboQuant KV-cache)
backend alongside the existing llama-cpp / ik-llama-cpp sections in
features/text-generation.md: when to pick it, how to install it from
the gallery, and a YAML example showing backend: turboquant together
with cache_type_k / cache_type_v.
Also expand the cache_type_k / cache_type_v table rows in
advanced/model-configuration.md to spell out the accepted llama.cpp
quantization values and note that these fields apply to all
llama.cpp-family backends, not just vLLM.
* feat(turboquant): patch ggml-rpc GGML_OP_COUNT assertion
The fork adds new GGML ops bringing GGML_OP_COUNT to 97, but
ggml/include/ggml-rpc.h static-asserts it equals 96, breaking
the GGML_RPC=ON build paths (turboquant-grpc / turboquant-rpc-server).
Carry a one-line patch that updates the expected count so the
assertion holds. Drop this patch whenever the fork fixes it upstream.
* feat(turboquant): allow turbo* KV-cache types and exercise them in e2e
The shared backend/cpp/llama-cpp/grpc-server.cpp carries its own
allow-list of accepted KV-cache types (kv_cache_types[]) and rejects
anything outside it before the value reaches llama.cpp's parser. That
list only contains the standard llama.cpp types — turbo2/turbo3/turbo4
would throw "Unsupported cache type" at LoadModel time, meaning
nothing the LocalAI gRPC layer accepted was actually fork-specific.
Add a build-time augmentation step (patch-grpc-server.sh, called from
the turboquant wrapper Makefile) that inserts GGML_TYPE_TURBO2_0/3_0/4_0
into the allow-list of the *copied* grpc-server.cpp under
turboquant-<flavor>-build/. The original file under backend/cpp/llama-cpp/
is never touched, so the stock llama-cpp build keeps compiling against
vanilla upstream which has no notion of those enum values.
Switch test-extra-backend-turboquant to set
BACKEND_TEST_CACHE_TYPE_K=turbo3 / _V=turbo3 so the e2e gRPC suite
actually runs the fork's TurboQuant KV-cache code paths (turbo3 also
auto-enables flash_attention in the fork). Picking q8_0 here would
only re-test the standard llama.cpp path that the upstream llama-cpp
backend already covers.
Refresh the docs (text-generation.md + model-configuration.md) to
list turbo2/turbo3/turbo4 explicitly and call out that you only get
the TurboQuant code path with this backend + a turbo* cache type.
* fix(turboquant): rewrite patch-grpc-server.sh in awk, not python3
The builder image (ubuntu:24.04 stage-2 in Dockerfile.turboquant)
does not install python3, so the python-based augmentation step
errored with `python3: command not found` at make time. Switch to
awk, which ships in coreutils and is already available everywhere
the rest of the wrapper Makefile runs.
* Apply suggestion from @mudler
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@users.noreply.github.com>
---------
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@users.noreply.github.com>
LocalAI is the open-source AI engine. Run any model - LLMs, vision, voice, image, video - on any hardware. No GPU required.
- Drop-in API compatibility — OpenAI, Anthropic, ElevenLabs APIs
- 36+ backends — llama.cpp, vLLM, transformers, whisper, diffusers, MLX...
- Any hardware — NVIDIA, AMD, Intel, Apple Silicon, Vulkan, or CPU-only
- Multi-user ready — API key auth, user quotas, role-based access
- Built-in AI agents — autonomous agents with tool use, RAG, MCP, and skills
- Privacy-first — your data never leaves your infrastructure
Created and maintained by Ettore Di Giacinto.
📖 Documentation | 💬 Discord | 💻 Quickstart | 🖼️ Models | ❓FAQ
Guided tour
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/08cbb692-57da-48f7-963d-2e7b43883c18
Click to see more!
User and auth
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/228fa9ad-81a3-4d43-bfb9-31557e14a36c
Agents
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/6270b331-e21d-4087-a540-6290006b381a
Usage metrics per user
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/cbb03379-23b4-4e3d-bd26-d152f057007f
Fine-tuning and Quantization
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/5ba4ace9-d3df-4795-b7d4-b0b404ea71ee
WebRTC
https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/ed88e34c-fed3-4b83-8a67-4716a9feeb7b
Quickstart
macOS
Note: The DMG is not signed by Apple. After installing, run:
sudo xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /Applications/LocalAI.app. See #6268 for details.
Containers (Docker, podman, ...)
Already ran LocalAI before? Use
docker start -i local-aito restart an existing container.
CPU only:
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 localai/localai:latest
NVIDIA GPU:
# CUDA 13
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --gpus all localai/localai:latest-gpu-nvidia-cuda-13
# CUDA 12
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --gpus all localai/localai:latest-gpu-nvidia-cuda-12
# NVIDIA Jetson ARM64 (CUDA 12, for AGX Orin and similar)
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --gpus all localai/localai:latest-nvidia-l4t-arm64
# NVIDIA Jetson ARM64 (CUDA 13, for DGX Spark)
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --gpus all localai/localai:latest-nvidia-l4t-arm64-cuda-13
AMD GPU (ROCm):
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --device=/dev/kfd --device=/dev/dri --group-add=video localai/localai:latest-gpu-hipblas
Intel GPU (oneAPI):
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 --device=/dev/dri/card1 --device=/dev/dri/renderD128 localai/localai:latest-gpu-intel
Vulkan GPU:
docker run -ti --name local-ai -p 8080:8080 localai/localai:latest-gpu-vulkan
Loading models
# From the model gallery (see available models with `local-ai models list` or at https://models.localai.io)
local-ai run llama-3.2-1b-instruct:q4_k_m
# From Huggingface
local-ai run huggingface://TheBloke/phi-2-GGUF/phi-2.Q8_0.gguf
# From the Ollama OCI registry
local-ai run ollama://gemma:2b
# From a YAML config
local-ai run https://gist.githubusercontent.com/.../phi-2.yaml
# From a standard OCI registry (e.g., Docker Hub)
local-ai run oci://localai/phi-2:latest
Automatic Backend Detection: LocalAI automatically detects your GPU capabilities and downloads the appropriate backend. For advanced options, see GPU Acceleration.
For more details, see the Getting Started guide.
Latest News
- March 2026: Agent management, New React UI, WebRTC, MLX-distributed via P2P and RDMA, MCP Apps, MCP Client-side
- February 2026: Realtime API for audio-to-audio with tool calling, ACE-Step 1.5 support
- January 2026: LocalAI 3.10.0 — Anthropic API support, Open Responses API, video & image generation (LTX-2), unified GPU backends, tool streaming, Moonshine, Pocket-TTS. Release notes
- December 2025: Dynamic Memory Resource reclaimer, Automatic multi-GPU model fitting (llama.cpp), Vibevoice backend
- November 2025: Import models via URL, Multiple chats and history
- October 2025: Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for agentic capabilities
- September 2025: New Launcher for macOS and Linux, extended backend support for Mac and Nvidia L4T, MLX-Audio, WAN 2.2
- August 2025: MLX, MLX-VLM, Diffusers, llama.cpp now supported on Apple Silicon
- July 2025: All backends migrated outside the main binary — lightweight, modular architecture
For older news and full release notes, see GitHub Releases and the News page.
Features
- Text generation (
llama.cpp,transformers,vllm... and more) - Text to Audio
- Audio to Text
- Image generation
- OpenAI-compatible tools API
- Realtime API (Speech-to-speech)
- Embeddings generation
- Constrained grammars
- Download models from Huggingface
- Vision API
- Object Detection
- Reranker API
- P2P Inferencing
- Distributed Mode — Horizontal scaling with PostgreSQL + NATS
- Model Context Protocol (MCP)
- Built-in Agents — Autonomous AI agents with tool use, RAG, skills, SSE streaming, and Agent Hub
- Backend Gallery — Install/remove backends on the fly via OCI images
- Voice Activity Detection (Silero-VAD)
- Integrated WebUI
Supported Backends & Acceleration
LocalAI supports 36+ backends including llama.cpp, vLLM, transformers, whisper.cpp, diffusers, MLX, MLX-VLM, and many more. Hardware acceleration is available for NVIDIA (CUDA 12/13), AMD (ROCm), Intel (oneAPI/SYCL), Apple Silicon (Metal), Vulkan, and NVIDIA Jetson (L4T). All backends can be installed on-the-fly from the Backend Gallery.
See the full Backend & Model Compatibility Table and GPU Acceleration guide.
Resources
- Documentation
- LLM fine-tuning guide
- Build from source
- Kubernetes installation
- Integrations & community projects
- Installation video walkthrough
- Media & blog posts
- Examples
Autonomous Development Team
LocalAI is helped being maintained by a team of autonomous AI agents led by an AI Scrum Master.
- Live Reports: reports.localai.io
- Project Board: Agent task tracking
- Blog Post: Learn about the experiment
Citation
If you utilize this repository, data in a downstream project, please consider citing it with:
@misc{localai,
author = {Ettore Di Giacinto},
title = {LocalAI: The free, Open source OpenAI alternative},
year = {2023},
publisher = {GitHub},
journal = {GitHub repository},
howpublished = {\url{https://github.com/go-skynet/LocalAI}},
Sponsors
Do you find LocalAI useful?
Support the project by becoming a backer or sponsor. Your logo will show up here with a link to your website.
A huge thank you to our generous sponsors who support this project covering CI expenses, and our Sponsor list:
Individual sponsors
A special thanks to individual sponsors, a full list is on GitHub and buymeacoffee. Special shout out to drikster80 for being generous. Thank you everyone!
Star history
License
LocalAI is a community-driven project created by Ettore Di Giacinto.
MIT - Author Ettore Di Giacinto mudler@localai.io
Acknowledgements
LocalAI couldn't have been built without the help of great software already available from the community. Thank you!
- llama.cpp
- https://github.com/tatsu-lab/stanford_alpaca
- https://github.com/cornelk/llama-go for the initial ideas
- https://github.com/antimatter15/alpaca.cpp
- https://github.com/EdVince/Stable-Diffusion-NCNN
- https://github.com/ggerganov/whisper.cpp
- https://github.com/rhasspy/piper
- exo for the MLX distributed auto-parallel sharding implementation
Contributors
This is a community project, a special thanks to our contributors!
