Skip to main content

Using the Link App

End-to-end walkthrough for setting up Locai Link on a new machine: the .pkg / tarball installer, the app's built-in first-run setup, the menu-bar tray, and the Preferences window. This section covers first-run, model deployment, re-registration, and uninstall on macOS and Linux.

Setting up a server instead?

Headless machines — servers, Raspberry Pis, and Windows — install with a one-line command and register with just a key, no desktop app involved. See Register a Device.

What you'll install​

As of 1.3.0, Locai Link is one desktop app backed by one background service:

  • Locai Link (the app). The menu-bar tray, the Preferences window, and the first-run setup all live in a single app. There is no separate Setup Assistant any more — onboarding opens in a window of Locai Link itself, and upgrading from an older version removes the old Setup Assistant automatically.
  • The background service. One service per machine supervises the agent runtime — the part that talks to Locai Control, downloads models, and runs inference. It starts automatically at login.
  • The locai command. Installed on your PATH: locai status, start, stop, restart, update, and uninstall work the same on every platform.

One install package covers all of it. There's nothing else to configure.

This is an Alpha build

You'll see Alpha after the version number in the app's menu-bar dropdown (Locai Link · Alpha · ONLINE), on the hover tooltip, and in the Preferences window's version row. It signals that the setup and GUI flow is still stabilising; the runtime itself is production-tested. Please report anything unexpected.

Before you start​

You need:

  • A Locai account at locai.co.uk. If you sign in with Google, you're set; the setup flow handles password-less accounts automatically.
  • Optionally: a list of models you want to deploy on this device on day one. You can always add or remove them later from Locai Control or the app's Preferences.

No registration key is needed for the desktop app — you sign in from the app itself during first-run setup. (Registration keys are for headless installs, where there is no screen to sign in on.)

Next steps​