Elmer

Use your Mac's AI models from your iPhone without a VPN.

Local AI is powerful but stuck on one device. Cloud AI is accessible but privacy-hostile. Elmer splits the difference: run models on your Mac, access them from your iPhone, all through iCloud's encrypted infrastructure.

The magic is using CloudKit as a relay layer. Your devices pair automatically via Apple ID. When your iPhone sends a request, it goes through CloudKit to your Mac, which processes it locally and returns the response via push notification. No configuration, no third-party servers, no network exposure.

The system auto-detects local AI services (Ollama, ComfyUI, LM Studio) and provides a native iOS chat interface for conversations. You can also execute custom tools: any script or command-line utility becomes remotely accessible through simple JSON configs. All processing stays on your hardware.

How it works:

• Pure Swift with native SwiftUI for both platforms

• CloudKit private database as encrypted relay

• Automatic device pairing via Apple ID

• Supports any OpenAI-compatible API

• Model Context Protocol (MCP) integration

• Automatic request cleanup and push notifications

• User-extensible tool system (~/.elmer/tools/)

• Multimodal support for image generation workflows

Contact for TestFlight beta.