Add Ollama Integration

This skill adds a stdio-based MCP server that exposes local Ollama models as tools for the container agent. Claude remains the orchestrator but can offload work to local models.

Tools added:

• ollama_list_models

  — lists installed Ollama models

• ollama_generate

  — sends a prompt to a specified model and returns the response

Phase 1: Pre-flight

Check if already applied

Read

.nanoclaw/state.yaml

. If

ollama

is in

applied_skills

, skip to Phase 3 (Configure). The code changes are already in place.

Check prerequisites

Verify Ollama is installed and running on the host:

ollama list

If Ollama is not installed, direct the user to https://ollama.com/download.

If no models are installed, suggest pulling one:

You need at least one model. I recommend:

ollama pull gemma3:1b    # Small, fast (1GB)
ollama pull llama3.2     # Good general purpose (2GB)
ollama pull qwen3-coder:30b  # Best for code tasks (18GB)

Phase 2: Apply Code Changes

Run the skills engine to apply this skill's code package.

Initialize skills system (if needed)

If

.nanoclaw/

directory doesn't exist yet:

npx tsx scripts/apply-skill.ts --init

Apply the skill

npx tsx scripts/apply-skill.ts .claude/skills/add-ollama-tool

This deterministically:

• Adds

  container/agent-runner/src/ollama-mcp-stdio.ts

  (Ollama MCP server)
• Adds

  scripts/ollama-watch.sh

  (macOS notification watcher)
• Three-way merges Ollama MCP config into

  container/agent-runner/src/index.ts

  (allowedTools + mcpServers)
• Three-way merges

  [OLLAMA]

  log surfacing into

  src/container-runner.ts

• Records the application in

  .nanoclaw/state.yaml

If the apply reports merge conflicts, read the intent files:

• modify/container/agent-runner/src/index.ts.intent.md

  — what changed and invariants

• modify/src/container-runner.ts.intent.md

  — what changed and invariants

Copy to per-group agent-runner

Existing groups have a cached copy of the agent-runner source. Copy the new files:

for dir in data/sessions/*/agent-runner-src; do
  cp container/agent-runner/src/ollama-mcp-stdio.ts "$dir/"
  cp container/agent-runner/src/index.ts "$dir/"
done

Validate code changes

npm run build
./container/build.sh

Build must be clean before proceeding.

Phase 3: Configure

Set Ollama host (optional)

By default, the MCP server connects to

http://host.docker.internal:11434

(Docker Desktop) with a fallback to

localhost

. To use a custom Ollama host, add to

.env

:

OLLAMA_HOST=http://your-ollama-host:11434

Restart the service

launchctl kickstart -k gui/$(id -u)/com.nanoclaw  # macOS
# Linux: systemctl --user restart nanoclaw

Phase 4: Verify

Test via WhatsApp

Tell the user:

Send a message like: "use ollama to tell me the capital of France"

The agent should use

ollama_list_models

to find available models, then

ollama_generate

to get a response.

Monitor activity (optional)

Run the watcher script for macOS notifications when Ollama is used:

./scripts/ollama-watch.sh

Check logs if needed

tail -f logs/nanoclaw.log | grep -i ollama

Look for:

• Agent output: ... Ollama ...

  — agent used Ollama successfully

• [OLLAMA] >>> Generating

  — generation started (if log surfacing works)

• [OLLAMA] <<< Done

  — generation completed

Troubleshooting

Agent says "Ollama is not installed"

The agent is trying to run

ollama

CLI inside the container instead of using the MCP tools. This means:

1. The MCP server wasn't registered — check

   container/agent-runner/src/index.ts

   has the

   ollama

   entry in

   mcpServers

2. The per-group source wasn't updated — re-copy files (see Phase 2)
3. The container wasn't rebuilt — run

   ./container/build.sh

"Failed to connect to Ollama"

1. Verify Ollama is running:

   ollama list

2. Check Docker can reach the host:

   docker run --rm curlimages/curl curl -s http://host.docker.internal:11434/api/tags

3. If using a custom host, check

   OLLAMA_HOST

   in

   .env

Agent doesn't use Ollama tools

The agent may not know about the tools. Try being explicit: "use the ollama_generate tool with gemma3:1b to answer: ..."