Guides • July 27, 2026

AI code editors you can run fully local: Cline, OpenCode & friends

By Laurent-C

Choosing a local code model is only half the story. The model is the engine; you still need a cockpit — the editor or agent that reads your files, proposes changes, and applies them. The good news: you don't have to hand that role to a cloud product. A whole ecosystem of tools now plugs straight into a local Ollama server, so your code, your prompts, and your context never leave your machine.

This guide walks through the best of them, with a concrete setup for each. They fall into three groups: IDE extensions, terminal agents, and a hybrid category for the one surprising case — running Anthropic's Claude Code against a local model.

Everything below assumes you already have Ollama installed and a code-capable model pulled.

The IDE route: VS Code extensions

If you live in VS Code, you don't switch editors — you add an extension that talks to Ollama.

Cline — the agentic all-rounder

Cline is the most complete local-first option. It's an agentic extension: it doesn't just autocomplete, it plans a change across multiple files, edits them, runs commands, and iterates — all driven by your local model. It supports Ollama natively, works in both VS Code and JetBrains, and speaks MCP, so you can give it tools and live data access.

Setup:

Install Cline from the VS Code marketplace.
Open Cline's settings, choose Ollama as the API provider.
Point it at http://localhost:11434 and select a pulled model (a capable one — agentic editing needs a model that follows tool-use instructions well).

💡 Agentic editing wants a bigger model

Multi-file editing and tool use are demanding. A tiny 3B model will fumble the workflow. Favour a mid-sized code or general model with a large context window — see our model-choosing guide.

Twinny — fast inline autocomplete

Where Cline is a heavyweight agent, Twinny does the other job well: real-time inline completion as you type — the ghost-text tab-completion people associate with Copilot. It's a VS Code extension tuned specifically for Ollama.

Setup:

Install Twinny from the marketplace.
Point it at your local Ollama instance.
Pick a fast, small FIM-capable model for autocomplete (latency matters here — a 7B code model is a good balance).

Twinny and Cline coexist happily: Twinny for instant completions, Cline for "refactor this whole module" tasks.

A note on Continue

Continue was for years the go-to open-source assistant for local models. Be aware that it was acquired by Cursor in June 2026, and v2.0 is its final independent release. It still works with Ollama today, but its future is uncertain — which is exactly why we'd steer new setups toward Cline.

The terminal route: OpenCode

Not everyone wants to work inside an editor. OpenCode is an open-source coding agent that lives in your terminal: it reads your project, plans changes, edits files, and runs commands — the same agentic loop as Cline, but at the command line. Paired with Ollama, nothing leaves your machine: no cloud, no telemetry, no usage limits.

Setup — the easy way:

ollama launch opencode

That single command (shipped by Ollama) starts OpenCode wired to your local Ollama server.

Setup — manual: Configure Ollama as a provider in opencode.json, with the base URL pointing at http://localhost:11434/v1 and your chosen model.

⚠️ OpenCode needs context and muscle

OpenCode's agentic workflow requires a context window of 64k or higher, and it struggles with very small models — avoid anything under ~9B. Pick a mid-to-large code model with a long context.

The hybrid route: Claude Code on a local model

Here's the case that surprises people. Claude Code is Anthropic's terminal agent — a proprietary tool, normally pointed at Anthropic's cloud. But since Ollama v0.14, Ollama speaks the Anthropic Messages API. That means you can keep Claude Code's excellent agentic UX while swapping the brain for an open-source model running locally.

Setup:

export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN=ollama
export ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=""
export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL=http://localhost:11434
claude --model qwen3.5

Replace qwen3.5 with any local model you've pulled. With ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL pointed at Ollama, Claude Code sends its requests to your machine instead of Anthropic's servers — your code stays home.

🧭 Be honest about what "local" means here

This is a genuine hybrid: the model and your code are local, but the tool itself is proprietary. That's a different trade-off from Cline or OpenCode, which are open source end to end. If your priority is the polished Claude Code workflow and you're fine with a closed-source client, this is a great option. If you want a fully open stack, stick to the tools above. Note too that Claude Code juggles several model "slots" internally — pointing it at a single local model can trip its background-task slots, so expect some rough edges.

And Claude Desktop?

For completeness: Claude Desktop is Anthropic's chat app, and it supports MCP for connecting tools — but its inference runs in Anthropic's cloud. There's no local-model swap the way Claude Code allows. It's a fine app; it's just not a local-AI tool, so it sits outside the sovereign setup this site is about.

Which one should you pick?

Tool	Type	Runs on Ollama	Open source	Best for
Cline	VS Code / JetBrains extension	✅ native	✅	Agentic multi-file editing with MCP
Twinny	VS Code extension	✅ native	✅	Fast inline autocomplete
OpenCode	Terminal agent	✅ (`ollama launch opencode`)	✅	Agentic coding at the command line
Claude Code	Terminal agent	✅ (via `ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL`)	❌ proprietary client	Polished UX, willing to use a closed tool
Claude Desktop	Chat app	❌ cloud inference	❌	Not a local tool

A sensible starting point for most people: Cline in VS Code for agentic work, Twinny for autocomplete — both fully open, both on your own model. Reach for OpenCode if you prefer the terminal, and try the Claude Code trick only if you specifically want that workflow and accept the closed client.