Set up Ollama for the assistant

Set up Ollama for the assistant

The Lensy uses a model on this machine by default. Ollama runs it. Nothing leaves your network.

1. Install Ollama and pull the two models

# install from https://ollama.com, then:
ollama pull llama3.2          # the chat model
ollama pull nomic-embed-text  # the embedding model for the documentation search
ollama serve                  # if it is not already running as a service

Ollama listens on http://localhost:11434, which is what Lens expects.

2. Turn the assistant on

On the console AI page (admin) switch on Enable the assistant and press Apply and save, then Test connection. Or set it in boxlang.json:

{ "modules": { "bxLens": { "settings": { "ai": { "enabled": true } } } } }

The assistant also needs BoxLang+ or a trial. The defaults are ai.provider: "ollama", ai.model: "llama3.2", ai.baseUrl: "http://localhost:11434" and ai.embeddingModel: "nomic-embed-text".

Ollama on another machine or in a container

Set ai.baseUrl to its address, for example http://ollama.internal:11434. Keep it on a network you control: the tool results go there.

A bigger model, or a hosted one

A small model such as llama3.2 handles simple questions. For harder ones choose a larger model (ai.model) or a hosted provider (ai.provider: openai, claude, gemini and others). Give the key through an environment variable and set ai.apiKeyEnv to its name. A hosted provider receives what the assistant reads.

If it does not work