local-model-triage

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Use when a locally-served model misbehaves in an agent harness — wrong/empty tool calls, truncated output, context overflow, or slow generation. Diagnoses whether the fault is the model tier, the serving config, or the harness wiring, using the agentic repo's probe and model matrix.

6installs

Sourceunsigned-gg/agentic

Added on2026-07-07

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add unsigned-gg/agentic local-model-triage

SKILL.md Content

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Local model triage

A local model "acting dumb" in a harness has exactly three fault domains. Check them in this order — cheapest first.

1. Serving config (most common)

Context window: serving defaults are often 4-8k; agent harnesses need 32k+. llama.cpp:
```
--ctx-size
```
; vLLM:
```
--max-model-len
```
; ollama:
```
num_ctx
```
in the Modelfile or request. Symptom: the agent forgets earlier turns or tool schemas mid-session.
Tool-call parsing: agentic use requires the server's native tool-call template. llama.cpp:
```
--jinja
```
; vLLM:
```
--enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser <family>
```
. Symptom: tool calls arrive as prose JSON in the text channel instead of structured calls.
Quantization too aggressive: below ~Q4, tool-call reliability degrades before chat quality does. Symptom: schema-ish but malformed arguments.

2. Model tier

Run

packages/local-models/probe.sh

; compare the served model against

packages/local-models/MODELS.md

for the hardware tier. A model below the matrix's "agentic-capable" line will loop, ignore system prompts, or hallucinate tool names — no serving flag fixes that; move up a tier or to a coder/agentic variant.

3. Harness wiring

Endpoint alive?

curl -s http://localhost:<port>/v1/models

Model id in the harness config must EXACTLY match the served id (
```
pi
```
:
```
~/.pi/agent/models.json
```
; opencode: provider
```
models
```
key; hermes:
```
model:
```
in
```
~/.hermes/cli-config.yaml
```
).
Streaming quirks: if output truncates only in one harness, test the same prompt via curl; if curl is fine, the fault is that harness's provider config, not the model.

Report findings as: fault domain → evidence → one-line fix.