Totem LLM

Your Mind Leads

A sovereign AI solution for consumer hardware. Keep your data private, run locally, stay in control.

🚀 Key Features

| Feature | Description | |---------|-------------| | Privacy First | All data stays on your machine. | | Consumer Hardware | Optimized for consumer-grade devices. | | Local & Cloud | Bring your own LLM provider — local runtimes or cloud APIs. | | Easy Setup | One-line install with automatic dependency resolution. |

📋 About

Totem LLM is a sovereign AI solution, aimed at optimizing for consumer hardware and ensuring data privacy. It is designed to run efficiently on consumer-grade hardware, such as laptops and desktops, without the need for cloud-based processing. This allows users to have full control over their data and AI interactions, without relying on third-party services.

While local AI is the core focus, Totem LLM supports both local and cloud-based LLM providers, giving users the flexibility to choose based on their needs and preferences. The system is built with a modular architecture, allowing for easy integration of new features and providers over time.

⚙️ Requirements

Before installing Totem LLM, you only need:

• Node.js v18 or later

You'll also want an LLM provider to talk to — see LLM Providers below. Local runtimes like Ollama are free and keep everything on your machine; cloud providers only require an API key. You can configure a provider after first launch from the settings UI if you prefer not to set one up beforehand.

🎯 Quick Start

1️⃣ Install the Package

Open your terminal and run:

npm install -g totem-llm

This automatically downloads Totem LLM and installs all dependencies (server, collector, frontend).

2️⃣ Start Totem LLM

totem-llm start

First run: Creates ~/totem-llm/ directory, generates secure configuration, migrates database, then launches services.

Access: Open http://localhost:8686 in your browser.

3️⃣ Connect an LLM Provider

Once the app is running, select a provider from Settings → LLM Providers. Supported providers include local runtimes (Ollama, LM Studio) and cloud APIs (OpenRouter, OpenAI, Anthropic), as well as any endpoint that speaks the generic OpenAI format. See LLM Providers.

4️⃣ Optional: Install as Desktop App

In the browser UI, click the install icon in the address bar (or use your browser menu) to add Totem LLM to your desktop. This is a link to the web GUI, but with its own window and taskbar/dock icon for easy access.

🧠 LLM Providers

Totem LLM works with a range of local and cloud LLM providers, configurable from the settings UI:

| Provider | Type | Notes | |----------|------|-------| | Ollama | Local | Run open-weight models on your own machine. Pull any model you like (e.g., ollama pull llama3.2). | | LM Studio | Local | GUI for running local models; exposes an OpenAI-compatible server that Totem connects to. | | OpenRouter | Cloud | Single API key for access to hundreds of hosted models. | | OpenAI | Cloud | GPT-4o, o-series, and other OpenAI models via your own API key. | | Anthropic | Cloud | Claude models via your own API key. | | Generic OpenAI format | Any | Point at any endpoint that implements the OpenAI chat completions API — self-hosted gateways, proxies, or other providers. |

More providers are available in the settings UI if you need them. Local options keep all processing (and your data) on your machine; cloud options trade privacy for access to larger models.

📚 Command Reference

totem-llm start                 # Start server and collector
totem-llm --no-collector       # Start server only (skip document ingestion)
totem-llm --port=8080          # Use custom server port
totem-llm setup                # Run first-time setup without starting
totem-llm --version            # Print version and exit
totem-llm --help               # Show all available commands

Environment Variables

# Override default storage location (default: ~/totem-llm)
export TOTEM_STORAGE_DIR=/your/custom/path
totem-llm start

All configuration (secrets, ports, settings) is stored in ~/totem-llm/.env and can be edited there.

🛠️ Troubleshooting

| Issue | Solution | |-------|----------| | npm not found (Windows) | Run npm.cmd instead of npm | | totem-llm command not found | Run npx.cmd totem-llm start or add npm global bin to PATH | | PowerShell script execution error | Run Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser once, then retry | | Alternative on Windows | Use Command Prompt (cmd.exe) instead of PowerShell |

🙏 Acknowledgments

Totem LLM is built on the foundation of AnythingLLM by Mintplex Labs. We are deeply grateful for their excellent work.

📄 License

Totem LLM is released under the MIT License — see LICENSE for details.

📞 Support

• 🐛 Report Issues → GitHub Issues
• 💬 Discussions → GitHub Discussions