---
title: "Run AI Models Locally"
description: "Get hands-on with local AI — install Ollama, run models offline, and learn prompting techniques."
---

# Run AI Locally

**A weekend project for beginners who want to run AI on their own computer — no cloud, no subscription, no internet required.**

---

## What This Course Is

You've used ChatGPT. You've maybe used Claude. They're amazing — but they run on someone else's computer, cost money, and need the internet.

What if you could run an AI model on **your own laptop**, completely offline, for free?

That's what this course is about. By the end, you'll have:

- A local AI model running on your Mac
- A set of "spells" (prompting techniques) that make any AI model work better
- A fully automated pipeline that can generate code, run it, test it, and improve itself
- A chat application you built yourself

## Who This Is For

This course is for **beginners**. If you can open a terminal and type a command, you're ready. You don't need to know Python, TypeScript, or any programming language. The AI will write the code for you.

If you're an experienced developer, there's still plenty here — the automation patterns, the prompt-engineering spells, and the iterative self-improvement loop are valuable at any level.

## What You'll Learn

| Section                | Skills                                                                                                                |
| ---------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **01 Getting Started** | Install Ollama, choose a model, run your first prompt, turn off Wi-Fi and watch it still work                         |
| **02 Prompting**       | Three "spells" that dramatically improve AI output: clarifying questions, YAGNI, and one-shot prompts                 |
| **03 Automation**      | Build a prompt runner, create a self-improving feedback loop, extract and execute generated code                      |
| **Projects**           | Five real projects the AI builds for you — a weather CLI, file combiner, data extractor, prompt runner, and chat REPL |

## The Philosophy

This isn't a typical tutorial where we explain abstract concepts and then have you fill in the blanks. Instead, we:

1. **Talk to the AI** — you'll have real conversations with Ollama, just like you do with ChatGPT
2. **Get our hands dirty** — copy code, run it, watch it break, fix it
3. **Build real things** — every exercise produces a working program you can actually use
4. **Learn through iteration** — we don't get it right the first time, and that's the point

By the time you're done, you'll have a mental model for how to work with AI that applies whether you're using a local model or a cloud API.

## Ready?

Start with **[About →](/run-ai-locally/about/)** to get your prerequisites and setup sorted.