explaingit

gogo6969/kinai

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

1RustAudience · generalComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · moderate

TLDR

A Mac app that lets a family share one person's local AI model across all their devices, with private chats and no cloud accounts.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((kinai))
    What it does
      Shares local LLM
      Family invite codes
      Private per-member chats
    Tech stack
      Rust
      Tauri
      SvelteKit
    Use cases
      Family AI assistant
      Hotkey overlay
      PDF and image input
    Audience
      Families
      Mac users

Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Share one Mac's local AI model with every device in your family without cloud accounts

USE CASE 2

Ask your family's shared AI a question instantly using a Spotlight style hotkey overlay

USE CASE 3

Keep each family member's chat history private while sharing the same underlying model

USE CASE 4

Attach PDFs or photos and have the shared AI read or analyze them

What is it built with?

RustTauriSvelteKitSQLite

How does it compare?

gogo6969/kinaiabc3dz/mixxxabyo-software/ferro-stash
Stars111
LanguageRustRustRust
Setup difficultymoderatemoderatemoderate
Complexity3/52/54/5
Audiencegeneralgeneralops devops

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Host Mac needs a local LLM backend like Ollama already running, macOS only for now.

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

In plain English

KinAI is a Mac app, built with Tauri and Rust on the backend and SvelteKit for the interface, that lets a family share one person's local AI model instead of everyone needing their own. One Mac runs as the Host, connecting to whatever local model backend you already have set up, such as Ollama, LM Studio, vLLM, llama.cpp, or Open WebUI. Every other family member installs the same app in Client mode on their own Mac and joins using a six character invite code or a QR code, no cloud account required. Once connected, anyone in the family can press Cmd+Space from any app to open an overlay similar to Spotlight, type a question, and get an answer from the shared model. Each family member's conversations stay private to them and are isolated from everyone else's chats. Conversation history is kept using a mix of the most recent messages plus a rolling summary and a searchable long term memory of older exchanges, so context is not lost even after months of use, while a token guard keeps the message from growing too large for the model to handle. Version 0.2 adds a number of features: voice input using macOS speech recognition, PDF and image attachments with the ability to route images to a vision capable model, an image search tool, several built in tools like web search and a calculator, support for tool calling, streaming responses with markdown, LaTeX, and code formatting, a system tray icon showing status, customizable hotkeys and themes, encrypted authentication on every connection, and automatic updates that roll out from the host to the rest of the family. The app currently only supports macOS, with Windows and Linux support planned. It is free and licensed under MIT.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Help me set up KinAI in Host mode on my Mac using Ollama as the backend
Prompt 2
Explain how KinAI keeps each family member's conversations private from each other
Prompt 3
Show me how to join an existing KinAI host from another family member's Mac
Prompt 4
Walk me through configuring KinAI's global hotkey to avoid conflicting with Spotlight

Frequently asked questions

What is kinai?

A Mac app that lets a family share one person's local AI model across all their devices, with private chats and no cloud accounts.

What language is kinai written in?

Mainly Rust. The stack also includes Rust, Tauri, SvelteKit.

What license does kinai use?

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial use, as long as you keep the copyright notice.

How hard is kinai to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is kinai for?

Mainly general.

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