Use Ollama to Enhance Claude — Two-Engine Setup

Pair Claude Desktop on Anthropic with Claude Code routed through Ollama in your terminal. Strategy stays on Pro. Heavy footwork runs on a free open-source model. Cut your Claude Code bill ~90%.

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What this is

A 21-slide visual walkthrough that pairs your Anthropic Claude Desktop app with an Ollama-backed Claude Code terminal session — so the strategic work stays on Pro while the heavy lifting runs on a free open-source model (Gemma, Qwen, DeepSeek, your pick).

• Auto-detects your OS — macOS, Windows + WSL2, Linux
• Copy-paste prompt — drop one block into Claude and it does ~98% of the setup for you
• Verifies both engines side-by-side at the end so you know it actually worked
• Self-contained HTML — no build step, opens in any browser

Why this exists

Claude Pro on the Desktop app is great for thinking, planning, and architecture. Claude Code in the terminal eats quota fast — context-heavy tasks like lints, refactors, file batch ops, and grep-and-replace can burn through your monthly limit in days.

The fix: route Claude Code through Ollama (local or cloud-hosted free model). Two engines, same UX, one bill cut by an order of magnitude.

Quick start

1) Open the live tutorial (recommended)

The hosted version has the full visual deck, OS-aware steps, and the copy-paste prompt:

→ coherencedaddy.com/tutorials/use-ollama-to-enhance-claude

2) Or use the copy-paste prompt directly

If you want to skip the visuals and let Claude do it all for you:

1. Open prompts/copy-paste-prompt.md
2. Copy the entire file contents
3. Paste into a fresh Claude Desktop / Claude.ai conversation
4. Follow along — it auto-detects your OS, installs everything, configures the router, and verifies both engines

3) Or run the presentation locally

git clone https://github.com/Coherence-Daddy/use-ollama-to-enhance-claude.git
cd use-ollama-to-enhance-claude/presentation
open index.html   # macOS
# or just drag index.html into a browser

What you'll have when you're done

Engine	Where it runs	What it's for
Claude Desktop (Anthropic)	Native app	Strategy, architecture, code review, tricky bugs
Claude Code → Ollama	Your terminal	Lints, refactors, repetitive edits, file batch ops

Two side-by-side panes. Same UX. One of them is free.

What's in this repo

.
├── README.md                          ← this file
├── LICENSE                            ← MIT
├── prompts/
│   └── copy-paste-prompt.md           ← the canonical setup prompt
└── presentation/
    ├── index.html                     ← 21-slide visual walkthrough
    ├── cd-face-coral.png              ← brand asset
    └── copy-paste-prompt.md           ← (mirror of /prompts version, kept beside the deck)

The presentation is the same exact HTML served at coherencedaddy.com/tutorials/use-ollama-to-enhance-claude. Open it locally, host it yourself, or fork it for your own walkthroughs.

Companion tutorial

If you want Claude Desktop wired to your Obsidian vault as a permanent semantic memory (with a one-click installer), see the sibling repo:

→ Coherence-Daddy/give-obsidian-a-memory — Local brain over your notes, indexed by BGE-M3, queryable by meaning. Ships with a one-click installer.

The two tutorials are independent — pick either or run both. This one is the lighter "two-engine" terminal setup; the other is the full Obsidian + local brain stack.

Topics

claude-code ollama gemma llm-tools cost-optimization agentic-coding anthropic open-source-llm

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Use it, fork it, ship a YouTube walkthrough of it. No attribution required, but if you do credit it, link to coherencedaddy.com.

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About Coherence Daddy

Coherence Daddy is a 508(c)(1)(A) faith-driven technology organization on a mission to help humanity be more coherent. We build private, secure self-help tools — and the occasional tutorial that saves you a few hundred bucks on AI bills.

• Website: coherencedaddy.com
• Free tools (523+): coherencedaddy.com/tools
• Tutorials: coherencedaddy.com/tutorials
• X / Twitter: @coherencedaddy

If this saved you a real chunk of money, the kindest thing you can do is ⭐ this repo and share the tutorial link.