Route a NanoClaw agent group to a local Ollama model instead of the Anthropic API. Ollama speaks the Anthropic API natively (v1/messages), so no provider code changes are needed — just env var overrides and a model setting. Use when the user wants to run their agent locally, cut API costs, or experiment with open-weight models. See docs/ollama.md for background.
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Routes an agent group to a local Ollama instance instead of the Anthropic API.
See docs/ollama.md for how this works and the tradeoffs involved.
curl -s http://localhost:11434/api/tagsollama pull gemma4 or ollama pull qwen3-coder/init-first-agent first if neededThe feature requires two fields in ContainerConfig (env and blockedHosts) and their
corresponding wiring in container-runner.ts. Check if already present:
grep -c 'blockedHosts' src/container-config.ts src/container-runner.tsIf either count is 0, apply the changes in steps 1a and 1b. Otherwise skip to step 2.
In src/container-config.ts, add to the ContainerConfig interface:
env?: Record<string, string>;
blockedHosts?: string[];And in readContainerConfig, add inside the returned object:
env: raw.env,
blockedHosts: raw.blockedHosts,In src/container-runner.ts, after the NANOCLAW_MCP_SERVERS block, add:
// Per-agent-group env overrides — applied last to win over OneCLI values.
if (containerConfig.env) {
for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(containerConfig.env)) {
args.push('-e', `${key}=${value}`);
}
}
// Blocked hosts: resolve to 0.0.0.0 so they are unreachable inside the container.
if (containerConfig.blockedHosts) {
for (const host of containerConfig.blockedHosts) {
args.push('--add-host', `${host}:0.0.0.0`);
}
}The container may run as your host uid (not uid 1000). Check the Dockerfile:
grep 'chmod.*home/node' container/DockerfileIf it shows chmod 755, change it to chmod 777 so any uid can write there.
Then rebuild the container image: ./container/build.sh
Ask the user (plain text, not AskUserQuestion):
pnpm exec tsx scripts/q.ts data/v2.db "SELECT folder, name FROM agent_groups;"curl -s http://localhost:11434/api/tags | grep '"name"'Record as FOLDER, MODEL, and BLOCK_ANTHROPIC.
Read groups/<FOLDER>/container.json. Add (or merge into) an env block and optionally blockedHosts:
{
"env": {
"ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL": "http://host.docker.internal:11434",
"ANTHROPIC_API_KEY": "ollama",
"NO_PROXY": "host.docker.internal",
"no_proxy": "host.docker.internal"
},
"blockedHosts": ["api.anthropic.com"]
}Omit blockedHosts if the user declined step 2.
Why these vars: ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL redirects the Anthropic SDK to Ollama.
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=ollama satisfies the SDK's key requirement (Ollama ignores it).
NO_PROXY bypasses the OneCLI HTTPS proxy for requests to host.docker.internal
so they reach Ollama directly instead of going through the credential gateway.
Read the agent group's shared Claude settings:
# Find the agent group ID
AG_ID=$(pnpm exec tsx scripts/q.ts data/v2.db "SELECT id FROM agent_groups WHERE folder='<FOLDER>';")
SETTINGS=data/v2-sessions/$AG_ID/.claude-shared/settings.jsonAdd "model": "<MODEL>" to that settings file. Create the file if it doesn't exist:
{
"model": "gemma4:latest"
}If the file already has content, merge the model key in — don't overwrite existing keys.
Why here and not container.json: Claude Code reads its model from its own settings
file, not from env vars. This file is bind-mounted into the container as ~/.claude/settings.json.
Run from your NanoClaw project root:
export PATH="/opt/homebrew/bin:$PATH"
pnpm run build
source setup/lib/install-slug.sh
launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/$(launchd_label).plist
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/$(launchd_label).plist
# Linux: systemctl --user restart $(systemd_unit)Send a message to the agent. Then confirm:
# Ollama shows the model as active
curl -s http://localhost:11434/api/ps | grep '"name"'
# Container has the right env vars
CTR=$(docker ps --filter "name=nanoclaw-v2-<FOLDER>" --format "{{.Names}}" | head -1)
docker inspect "$CTR" --format '{{json .HostConfig.ExtraHosts}}'
docker exec "$CTR" env | grep ANTHROPICExpected: api.anthropic.com:0.0.0.0 in ExtraHosts, ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://host.docker.internal:11434.
To switch back to the Anthropic API:
env and blockedHosts keys from groups/<FOLDER>/container.json"model" from the shared settings fileNo rebuild needed — both files are read at container spawn time.
Agent hangs, no response: Ollama may be loading the model cold (large models take 10–30s).
Watch curl -s http://localhost:11434/api/ps — the model appears once loaded.
"model not found" error in container logs: The model name in settings.json doesn't match
what Ollama has. Run ollama list on the host and use the exact name shown.
Responses claim to be Claude: The model was trained on data that includes Claude conversations.
Add a line to groups/<FOLDER>/CLAUDE.md telling it what model it runs on.
Agent responds but Ollama shows no activity: NO_PROXY may not have taken effect for
http_proxy (lowercase). Add both NO_PROXY and no_proxy to the env block.
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