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locopilot init

Initialize LocoPilot — installs Ollama, sets up local database, writes config.

Source: src/cli/commands/init.ts

Synopsis​

locopilot init

No flags. Idempotent — safe to re-run.

What it does​

The command runs four sequential steps. Each step prints its own success/failure line and the entire run takes ~10 seconds on a warm machine.

1. Ollama​

Probes http://localhost:11434 and the ollama binary:

StateAction
Already installed and running✔ printed, skip
Installed but not runningstarts the service (brew services start ollama, systemctl --user start ollama, or background ollama serve) and waits up to 10 s for it to respond
Not installedauto-installs via brew install --cask ollama (macOS), `curl ...

If auto-install fails, init prints the manual link to https://ollama.ai/download and continues — your local DB still gets created.

2. Python 3​

Verifies python3 is reachable. On Windows the check tries python3, python, then py. The version must match Python 3.x.

If missing, init prints platform-specific install hints:

This is non-fatal — Python is only needed for training adapters.

3. SQLite​

Creates ~/.locopilot/db.sqlite (path overridable via SQLITE_PATH) and runs the schema:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS inference_logs (
  id          TEXT PRIMARY KEY,
  api_key_id  TEXT,
  model       TEXT NOT NULL,
  provider    TEXT NOT NULL,
  tokens_in   INTEGER,
  tokens_out  INTEGER,
  latency_ms  INTEGER,
  ttfb_ms     INTEGER,
  status      INTEGER,
  created_at  TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT (datetime('now'))
);

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS training_jobs (
  id           TEXT PRIMARY KEY,
  framework    TEXT NOT NULL,
  status       TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT 'pending',
  base_model   TEXT NOT NULL,
  dataset_path TEXT NOT NULL,
  output_path  TEXT,
  config_json  TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT '{}',
  error        TEXT,
  started_at   TEXT,
  completed_at TEXT,
  created_at   TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT (datetime('now'))
);

CREATE INDEX IF NOT EXISTS idx_training_jobs_status
  ON training_jobs(status);

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS makes this safe to run repeatedly.

4. .env​

If ~/.locopilot/.env does not exist, writes:

# LocoPilot local config — edit as needed
SQLITE_PATH=/Users/you/.locopilot/db.sqlite
OLLAMA_HOST=http://localhost:11434
API_PORT=8080

# Uncomment to override the LocoPilot Cloud URL (for local dev):
# LOCOPILOT_CLOUD_URL=http://localhost:8081

If the file already exists, it is not overwritten — your customisations are preserved.

Apple Silicon hint​

On darwin/arm64 the final summary recommends MLX:

  Apple Silicon detected — training will use the MLX adapter (mlx-lm).
  Install: pip3 install mlx-lm

On every other platform it recommends the Unsloth path:

  Training uses Unsloth or Axolotl (Linux/Windows).
  Install: pip3 install unsloth trl transformers datasets

Exit codes​

CodeMeaning
0Setup succeeded (or finished with a non-fatal warning like "Ollama auto-install failed")
1Database creation failed (the only fatal error)

Next​

locopilot models pull llama3:8b
locopilot start