Want an AI coding assistant that works on YOUR codebase, respects YOUR git history, and doesn't send your code to the cloud? Aider + Ollama gives you exactly that.
Aider is an AI pair programming tool that works directly in your terminal. It sees your files, understands your git repo, and makes real edits to your code. Paired with Ollama running a local model, you get a fully private coding assistant.
pip install aider-chat
ollama pull qwen3-coder:30b-a3b
Set Aider to use your local Ollama model:
export OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=8192
aider --model ollama_chat/qwen3-coder:30b-a3b --editor
For persistent config, create .env
in your project:
OLLAMA_CONTEXT_LENGTH=8192
AIDER_MODEL=ollama_chat/qwen3-coder:30b-a3b
cd my-project
aider --model ollama_chat/qwen3-coder:30b-a3b
Aider reads your files, makes changes, and commits them with sensible messages. You approve each change before it's applied.
On a RTX 4090 with Qwen3 Coder 30B at Q4: ~15-20 tok/s, enough for real-time code suggestions.
Qwen2.5 Coder 14B runs faster (~35 tok/s) and fits on a 12GB GPU, great for smaller projects.
Originally published on everylocalai.com