Macaw-4bit-MLX

🦜 Macaw · 4-bit MLX

The build that runs on your Mac. 1.5 GB, ~2 GB of memory, about a second per request on an M2.

Ask for something in plain English and it does it — sends the email, finds the file, reads the PDF, tells you what's draining your battery. Nothing leaves the machine.

👉 badtheorylabs.com/macaw

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Install

pip install mlx-lm

mlx_lm.generate --model badtheorylabs/Macaw-4bit-MLX \
  --prompt "what's my battery at?"

Or serve it locally:

mlx_lm.server --model badtheorylabs/Macaw-4bit-MLX --port 8138

Then talk to it like any OpenAI-compatible endpoint, passing your tools:

import requests

tools = [{"type": "function", "function": {
    "name": "battery_status",
    "description": "Report battery percentage and charging state."}}]

r = requests.post("http://127.0.0.1:8138/v1/chat/completions", json={
    "model": "badtheorylabs/Macaw-4bit-MLX",
    "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "what's my battery at?"}],
    "tools": tools, "temperature": 0.0, "max_tokens": 128})

print(r.json()["choices"][0]["message"]["content"])
# <|tool_call_start|>[battery_status()]<|tool_call_end|>

You run the tool, feed the result back, and it answers in plain language. The full app — 97 macOS tools, parsing, and a confirmation gate on anything destructive — is at github.com/Badtheorylabs/Macaw.

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What it's for

"email ada the q3 numbers and tell her i approved"
"why is my mac slow?"
"read ~/Documents/contract.pdf and summarise it"
"take a screenshot, make a folder called Shots, and move it there"
"am i free tomorrow afternoon?"

Mail · Calendar · Files · Notes · Reminders · Music · Safari · Chrome · System settings · Screen reading · Documents · Diagnostics

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Specs

Need BF16 for fine-tuning or GPU serving? That's badtheorylabs/Macaw.

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Private by construction

There is no server. The model is on your disk, the tools run through macOS APIs on your machine, and nothing is transmitted. No account, no telemetry, no exceptions — including from us.

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License

Derived from LFM2.5-2.6B under the LFM Open License v1.0. Free commercially below $10M annual revenue. App and tooling are MIT.

© 2026 Bad Theory Labs