Ollama is the software that runs AI models locally on your computer. Think of it as the engine that powers everything.

curl -fsSL https://ollama.com/install.sh | sh

Download the installer from ollama.com and run it.

Install Claude Code using the native installer for your platform.

Configure environment variables so Claude Code uses Ollama instead of Anthropic cloud services.

Step 5 — Start Claude Code with Your Local Model

Launch Claude Code and specify the model you downloaded.

Claude Code — Free Local Setup Guide

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