PathruleThe local model
Pathrule can run an optional model on your own Mac. Which Macs run it, how to install, update and remove it with the CLI, what it is used for, how offline use works, and what happens when it is not there.
On this page
Some understanding is best done where your work lives.
Pathrule Intelligence can run a model on your own machine. It is optional, and it exists to understand knowledge, not to write code. It can turn a preference you teach into structured User Intelligence and compile workspace knowledge into guidance grounded in the source your team wrote. The runtime validates that compiled guidance before using it and falls back to source text when coverage cannot be established. Local inference does not send the input to an external model provider.
What gets installed
Two pieces: a dedicated runtime for the model, and the model itself. Both are installed under your Pathrule home directory, ~/.pathrule by default, or wherever PATHRULE_HOME points. Pathrule brings and verifies what the runtime needs, so the install does not depend on which tools your Mac already has.
pathrule intelligence install # download, verify and activate
pathrule intelligence status # installed version, and whether an update is available
pathrule intelligence update # move to the latest version
pathrule intelligence remove # remove it
On a supported Mac, pathrule setup offers the download once. If you decline, it does not ask again, and you can run pathrule intelligence install whenever you like.
Size and platform
| Purpose | Understanding knowledge, not writing code |
| Download | Several gigabytes; pathrule setup shows the size before you agree |
| Platform | Apple Silicon Mac, macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later |
The requirements are checked up front. On a Mac without Apple Silicon, or one running a macOS older than 14, setup does not offer the model, and an install attempt stops with that reason rather than downloading gigabytes and failing at the end. On Linux and Windows the CLI works fully without it.
When something does go wrong during setup, the message names the phase and the cause, such as no connection, a proxy, a full disk or an older macOS.
Lifecycle and updates
pathrule intelligence status reports where the install stands: not installed, ready, update available, or an error with its reason.
Three properties hold throughout:
- A version is activated only after it has been verified. A download that does not match what Pathrule published is never used.
- A failed or corrupt download never touches the active version. The previously installed model, if any, stays exactly as it was.
- Updates do not need a new CLI release.
pathrule intelligence updatefetches whatever the latest published version is.
Load and unload
The model is not resident all the time. It starts on demand, on your machine only, is checked to be genuinely answering before anything uses it, and unloads again after a period of inactivity. The first request after it has been idle takes noticeably longer than the ones that follow.
Offline
Once it is installed, the model does not need a network to understand what you teach it. Installing and updating it does. Pathrule Cloud, if you use it, is a separate thing (see below).
When the model is not there
Nothing that delivers knowledge depends on it. Memories, rules, skills, findings and the preferences you already taught keep reaching your agents exactly as before, whether the model is installed or not.
Teaching a new preference and model-assisted local understanding need it. Without the model, pathrule me teach says the on-device model is not available and tells you how to install it, rather than storing something it could not check. Every other pathrule me command works without it.
What "local" does and does not mean
This is the sentence that has to stay precise.
True: when you teach Pathrule a preference, the inference runs on your device, and the result is stored on your machine. The model receives the knowledge or teaching input for the operation, not an automatic upload of your repository.
Also true, and separate: Pathrule has cloud services for accounts, teams, billing, workspace sync and distribution of the model itself. In Cloud mode, the start of each prompt is sent to Pathrule Cloud to rank the workspace's knowledge, and pathrule snapshot, when you or your agent run it, uploads a description of the project. And when you run Claude Code, Codex or any other coding agent, that agent's own provider boundaries apply to whatever you send it.
Three boundaries, not one. Security and privacy describes each.