Provider-agnostic AI on the command line or API, working on local data that you own

is one of the most powerful ways to use AI right now. It is a huge step up from just using the regular chat interfaces - managing projects and context is arduous, all your data lives in the respective AI provider's cloud, and you are limited to using one provider's models.

Local tools that work on local data free you from a lot of these constraints and allow for much more fine-grained control of what gets exposed to which AI provider.

This is how tools like my Autónomo's little helper work.