[josefcub]

Try charmbracelet's crush, found here:

https://github.com/charmbracelet/crush

Crush is pretty new, but getting better all the time. It's written in Go, so no node hijinks to get it working. It works fine with my ollama or llama-server localhost endpoints, and I've used it to make up a couple of internal projects without any issues.

It does have internal telemetry and such (including updating its list of external models it can use) that can be turned off in the crush.json configuration file.

If you're on a Mac, you can install via homebrew or use the more traditional route via Github.

[Ms-J]

Thanks for the recommendation, I took a look and maybe you can answer a few questions that I couldn't find a clear answer when doing some quick searching.

Regarding local models, can it use them? I found this discussion:

https://github.com/charmbracelet/crush/discussions/775

I didn't appreciate the meow maintainer's attitude converting it into a discussion and ignoring the issue even to this day.

"It does have internal telemetry and such (including updating its list of external models it can use) that can be turned off in the crush.json configuration file."

Is there a page or guide which explains the telemetry and any internet connected settings?

Forgot to add, I use Linux.

[josefcub]

My google-fu is failing me at the moment to cite sources, but here's an example ~/.config/crush/crush.json file (based on my own) showing the options to remove telemetry and provider auto updates, and the connection info to connect to a localhost model on an OpenAI-compatible endpoint:

{ "$schema": "https://charm.land/crush.json", "options": { "disable_provider_auto_update": true, "disable_metrics": true }, "providers": { "ollama": { "name": "Local Models", "base_url": "http://localhost:11434/v1", "api_key": "nunya", "type": "openai-compat", "models": [ { "name": "Qwen 3.5 Local", "id": "qwen-3.5-35b-planning", "cost_per_1m_in": 0.01, "cost_per_1m_out": 0.01, "context_window": 131072, "think": true, "default_max_tokens": 5120, "supports_attachments": true } ] } } }

...or not, thanks to formatting. I can't even search for help formatting this text box, because of HN's nature haha

[Ms-J]

That helps a lot being able to see an example, thanks!

I don't know why all of these tools make it so hard to find the info to disable the telemetry/spying it's not just this one.

Regarding the formatting, I have no idea haha but there is a small "help" button on the bottom right next to the comment. Yes yes, I'm sure it won't help much.

Alternatively, possibly asking an LLM might help. It was able to link me the other day to a comment between a user complaining to the mod about the posting cool down period. I was able to learn that it can be disabled per account.