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Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop

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Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop

#81

Rowboat markets itself as "local-first," but if you look in the actual codebase, transcription is Deepgram cloud, voice is ElevenLabs, analytics is PostHog, and the LLM is a cloud API.

I had a hunch that would be the case. I'm always nervous pointing any AI tool at my email, browser, and finances. Any similar solution that's truly local-first?

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Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop

#83

This looks really great! Quick question, is there any support for using local models?

Yes! You can use local models through Ollama and LM Studio. We do some special handling when you use local models, such as suppressing background agents when you chat, so the model is not overwhelmed.

Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop

#85

Rowboat markets itself as "local-first," but if you look in the actual codebase, transcription is Deepgram cloud, voice is ElevenLabs, analytics is PostHog, and the LLM is a cloud API.

I had a hunch that would be the case. I'm always nervous pointing any AI tool at my email, browser, and finances. Any similar solution that's truly local-first?

Not right now but I'm actually exploring this idea space — doing user research —. I would be happy to chat with you – or whoever happens to read this and is into this topic – about that. simone [at] breadboards.io

Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop

#86
All I want in an AI is this:

1. cd 2. start_AI_agent_REPL 3. "hey AI, analyze the code base in this repo, and find any and all bugs related to 'e.g. porting from 32bit -> 64bit architecture', create work branches for the bug fixes, submit a PR at the repo site for each fix" 4. Goto 3.

I want to be able to treat my AI/ML assistant as a daemon I can turn on and off for any repo - I do not want it to be running all the time, I don't want an email interface to it, I don't want it to analyze my system to try to help me, I want it to be treated like any other system service I will enable and disable, per-directory, manually.

Everything else - the desktop app, the in-built browser, the Obsidian note-taking system - is pure noise, and it immediately disqualifies Rowboat from any investment on my part.

Just a simple daemon style approach, with a REPL, an interface to Git, and THAT IS ALL.

There will be a time and place for a whole new radical UI to AI/ML in my personal laboratory - that time is when I get a brand new machine dedicated just to AI/ML and only put things on it that I want to put on it. Not my personal machine, not my development machine - a machine that will only function as a junior AI/ML-based software developer in my team, with an interface to Git that is standard and battle-tested over years and years of actual work - and nothing else.

I know this tool is out there. I continue to swim through the junk to find it, however.

Rowboat is instantly disqualified from my environment by bringing in too many bells and whistles - all of it junk, because I will have to learn to manage it all anew, and that is not what I want in an AI/ML agent.

Anything which detracts from having AI/ML sandboxed as a daemon and its only interface through the current .git/config for the repo I'm applying it to, is noise and nonsense.

Re: Show HN: Rowboat – Open-source, local-first alternative to Claude Desktop

#88

All I want in an AI is this: 1. cd 2. start_AI_agent_REPL 3. "hey AI, analyze the code base in this repo, and find any and all bugs related to 'e.g. porting from 32bit -> 64bit architecture', create work branches for the bug fixes, submit a PR at the repo site for each fix" 4. Goto 3. I want to be able to treat my AI/ML assistant as a daemon I can turn on and off for any repo - I do not want it to be running all the…

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