We're Just Starting

Website and vision documented. Architecture designed. First commits incoming.

[ WATCH THE REPO → ]

If you believe in the mission, here's what we need to make it happen. Some of this we're building. Some of it we can't build alone. All of it needs to exist.

> 1. WHAT THE ECOSYSTEM NEEDS

These are the missing pieces — things anyone can build. Some are critical infrastructure; without them, local-first stays a hobby. Others make the difference between "technically possible" and "actually usable."

CRITICAL GAP

Local AI That Actually Works

A complete AI assistant running entirely on hardware you own. Not a tech demo — something your non-technical family member could use. Handles personal data, works offline, no subscription. Ollama runs models. Nobody's built the experience yet.

Partial: Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp
CRITICAL GAP

Data Liberation Tools

Export everything you've given to Google, Apple, Facebook, banks, health apps — and import it somewhere you control. The "download your data" options are deliberately hard to use. We need tools that parse those exports into something useful.

Partial: Google Takeout parsers exist but are fragmented
NEEDED

Serverless Backup

Back up your data across multiple locations without trusting any single company. Like BitTorrent but for keeping your stuff safe. The technology exists (erasure coding, DHT, etc.) — making it easy doesn't yet.

Related: Syncthing, Restic, BorgBackup
NEEDED

Cross-Device Sync Without the Cloud

Keep phone, laptop, and tablet in sync without going through someone else's servers. Syncthing does this and it's great — but it needs to be easier and work better on phones (iOS especially).

Partial: Syncthing (works well on Android, limited iOS)
HELPFUL

Local Photo Library

Google Photos and Apple Photos are genuinely good. A local version needs to match their search and organization features without sending everything to the cloud. Face recognition, scene tagging, timeline views — all running locally.

Partial: PhotoPrism, Immich
HELPFUL

Personal Knowledge Base

A system that collects everything you save — notes, emails, documents, bookmarks — and lets you search and ask questions about it. Obsidian is close. Making it work with local AI would be transformative.

Partial: Obsidian, Logseq, Notion (cloud)

Pick the thing about cloud services that annoys you most.

Build a local version. Even a partial solution is better than nothing.

> 2. OUR CONTRIBUTION

LocalGhost is our piece of the puzzle: a privacy-first, self-hosted AI system designed to run entirely on your hardware. Six daemons, each with one job. Hidden volumes and duress mode for when encryption isn't enough. Hardware tiers from Raspberry Pi to rack mount.

The technical details live in the repo. Architecture, security model, roadmap phases, hardware specs — all documented there.

Current status: Phase 0. Website live, architecture documented, first commits incoming. Software releases named after ghosts — wisp, shade, specter, phantom, poltergeist. Hardware ships after software is stable.

> 3. HOW TO HELP
Build Something

See a gap in section 1? Fill it. Even partial solutions matter. The Directory tracks what exists — add yours when it's ready.

Write tallyd Plugins

Data parsers for ghost.tallyd — bank exports, health apps, fitness trackers, anything that exports data. Plugin architecture makes this modular.

Test and Break Things

Security review, edge cases, UX feedback. When builds exist, we need people who'll try to break them.

Fund Development

ETH: zerocool.eth

0xc72C85BDd6584324619176618E86E5e3196C6b47
The box isn't a new dependency — it's infrastructure you own.
Everything is open source. Export buttons built in.
If you want to leave, you take your data with you. Build something you actually own. [ localghost.ai ]