:robot: The free, Open Source alternative to OpenAI, Claude and others. Self-hosted and local-first. Drop-in replacement, running on consumer-grade hardware. No GPU required. Runs gguf, transformers, diffusers and many more. Features: Generate Text, MCP, Audio, Video, Images, Voice Cloning, Distributed, P2P and decentralized inference
> **Note:** All CLI flags can also be set via environment variables. Environment variables take precedence over CLI flags. See [.env files]({{%relref "advanced/advanced-usage#env-files" %}}) for configuration file support.
| `--localai-config-dir` | `BASEPATH/configuration` | Directory for dynamic loading of certain configuration files (currently runtime_settings.json, api_keys.json, and external_backends.json). See [Runtime Settings]({{%relref "features/runtime-settings" %}}) for web-based configuration. | `$LOCALAI_CONFIG_DIR` |
| `--localai-config-dir-poll-interval` | | Time duration to poll the LocalAI Config Dir if your system has broken fsnotify events (example: `1m`) | `$LOCALAI_CONFIG_DIR_POLL_INTERVAL` |
| `--models-config-file` | | YAML file containing a list of model backend configs (alias: `--config-file`) | `$LOCALAI_MODELS_CONFIG_FILE`, `$CONFIG_FILE` |
| `--parallel-requests` | `false` | Enable backends to handle multiple requests in parallel if they support it (e.g.: llama.cpp or vllm) | `$LOCALAI_PARALLEL_REQUESTS`, `$PARALLEL_REQUESTS` |
| `--max-active-backends` | `0` | Maximum number of active backends (loaded models). When exceeded, the least recently used model is evicted. Set to `0` for unlimited, `1` for single-backend mode | `$LOCALAI_MAX_ACTIVE_BACKENDS`, `$MAX_ACTIVE_BACKENDS` |
| `--single-active-backend` | `false` | **DEPRECATED** - Use `--max-active-backends=1` instead. Allow only one backend to be run at a time | `$LOCALAI_SINGLE_ACTIVE_BACKEND`, `$SINGLE_ACTIVE_BACKEND` |
| `--preload-backend-only` | `false` | Do not launch the API services, only the preloaded models/backends are started (useful for multi-node setups) | `$LOCALAI_PRELOAD_BACKEND_ONLY`, `$PRELOAD_BACKEND_ONLY` |
| `--enable-watchdog-idle` | `false` | Enable watchdog for stopping backends that are idle longer than the watchdog-idle-timeout | `$LOCALAI_WATCHDOG_IDLE`, `$WATCHDOG_IDLE` |
| `--watchdog-idle-timeout` | `15m` | Threshold beyond which an idle backend should be stopped | `$LOCALAI_WATCHDOG_IDLE_TIMEOUT`, `$WATCHDOG_IDLE_TIMEOUT` |
| `--enable-watchdog-busy` | `false` | Enable watchdog for stopping backends that are busy longer than the watchdog-busy-timeout | `$LOCALAI_WATCHDOG_BUSY`, `$WATCHDOG_BUSY` |
| `--watchdog-busy-timeout` | `5m` | Threshold beyond which a busy backend should be stopped | `$LOCALAI_WATCHDOG_BUSY_TIMEOUT`, `$WATCHDOG_BUSY_TIMEOUT` |
| `--force-eviction-when-busy` | `false` | Force eviction even when models have active API calls (default: false for safety). **Warning:** Enabling this can interrupt active requests | `$LOCALAI_FORCE_EVICTION_WHEN_BUSY`, `$FORCE_EVICTION_WHEN_BUSY` |
| `--lru-eviction-max-retries` | `30` | Maximum number of retries when waiting for busy models to become idle before eviction | `$LOCALAI_LRU_EVICTION_MAX_RETRIES`, `$LRU_EVICTION_MAX_RETRIES` |
| `--lru-eviction-retry-interval` | `1s` | Interval between retries when waiting for busy models to become idle (e.g., `1s`, `2s`) | `$LOCALAI_LRU_EVICTION_RETRY_INTERVAL`, `$LRU_EVICTION_RETRY_INTERVAL` |
| `--preload-models` | | A list of models to apply in JSON at start | `$LOCALAI_PRELOAD_MODELS`, `$PRELOAD_MODELS` |
| `--models` | | A list of model configuration URLs to load | `$LOCALAI_MODELS`, `$MODELS` |
| `--preload-models-config` | | A list of models to apply at startup. Path to a YAML config file | `$LOCALAI_PRELOAD_MODELS_CONFIG`, `$PRELOAD_MODELS_CONFIG` |
| `--load-to-memory` | | A list of models to load into memory at startup | `$LOCALAI_LOAD_TO_MEMORY`, `$LOAD_TO_MEMORY` |
> **Note:** You can also pass model configuration URLs as positional arguments: `local-ai run MODEL_URL1 MODEL_URL2 ...`
| `-t, --threads` | | Number of threads used for parallel computation. Usage of the number of physical cores in the system is suggested | `$LOCALAI_THREADS`, `$THREADS` |
| `--api-keys` | | List of API Keys to enable API authentication. When this is set, all requests must be authenticated with one of these API keys | `$LOCALAI_API_KEY`, `$API_KEY` |
| `--disable-webui` | `false` | Disables the web user interface. When set to true, the server will only expose API endpoints without serving the web interface | `$LOCALAI_DISABLE_WEBUI`, `$DISABLE_WEBUI` |
| `--disable-runtime-settings` | `false` | Disables the runtime settings feature. When set to true, the server will not load runtime settings from the `runtime_settings.json` file and the settings web interface will be disabled | `$LOCALAI_DISABLE_RUNTIME_SETTINGS`, `$DISABLE_RUNTIME_SETTINGS` |
| `--machine-tag` | | If not empty, add that string to Machine-Tag header in each response. Useful to track response from different machines using multiple P2P federated nodes | `$LOCALAI_MACHINE_TAG`, `$MACHINE_TAG` |
| `--disable-predownload-scan` | `false` | If true, disables the best-effort security scanner before downloading any files | `$LOCALAI_DISABLE_PREDOWNLOAD_SCAN` |
| `--opaque-errors` | `false` | If true, all error responses are replaced with blank 500 errors. This is intended only for hardening against information leaks and is normally not recommended | `$LOCALAI_OPAQUE_ERRORS` |
| `--use-subtle-key-comparison` | `false` | If true, API Key validation comparisons will be performed using constant-time comparisons rather than simple equality. This trades off performance on each request for resilience against timing attacks | `$LOCALAI_SUBTLE_KEY_COMPARISON` |
| `--disable-api-key-requirement-for-http-get` | `false` | If true, a valid API key is not required to issue GET requests to portions of the web UI. This should only be enabled in secure testing environments | `$LOCALAI_DISABLE_API_KEY_REQUIREMENT_FOR_HTTP_GET` |
| `--http-get-exempted-endpoints` | `^/$,^/app(/.*)?$,^/browse(/.*)?$,^/login/?$,^/explorer/?$,^/assets/.*$,^/static/.*$,^/swagger.*$` | If `--disable-api-key-requirement-for-http-get` is overridden to true, this is the list of endpoints to exempt. Only adjust this in case of a security incident or as a result of a personal security posture review | `$LOCALAI_HTTP_GET_EXEMPTED_ENDPOINTS` |
| `--auth-enabled` | `false` | Enable user authentication and authorization | `$LOCALAI_AUTH` |
| `--auth-database-url` | `{DataPath}/database.db` | Database URL for auth — `postgres://...` for PostgreSQL, or a file path for SQLite | `$LOCALAI_AUTH_DATABASE_URL`, `$DATABASE_URL` |
| `--github-client-id` | | GitHub OAuth App Client ID (auto-enables auth when set) | `$GITHUB_CLIENT_ID` |
| `--p2p-network-id` | | Network ID for P2P mode, can be set arbitrarily by the user for grouping a set of instances | `$LOCALAI_P2P_NETWORK_ID`, `$P2P_NETWORK_ID` |
