Running Local LLM Agents on Mac Minis with Telegram Interface
A developer on r/LocalLLaMA detailed a system for running multiple local LLM agents on Mac Minis, controlled entirely through Telegram messages from a phone. The setup eliminates API costs and provides complete privacy while maintaining functionality similar to commercial services like Claude Code Channels.
Technical Setup
The core system uses:
- Local models through LMStudio: 35B models for everyday tasks, 235B models for heavier reasoning
- Claude Code running in tmux sessions on each Mac Mini
- Telegram bots that bridge user messages to the tmux sessions
- 80 lines of Python for the Telegram bot implementation (available on GitHub)
The workflow is straightforward: text a message to the Telegram bot, which types it into the tmux session, watches for output, and sends the response back.
Key Advantages
- Zero ongoing cost: Hardware is the only expense—no API keys, rate limits, or quota restrictions
- Complete privacy: Everything stays on the local area network (LAN)
- Model flexibility: Mix and match different models—one agent runs Gemini CLI, others use LMStudio pointed at Ollama models
- No vendor lock-in: LMStudio serves the Anthropic Messages API natively, so Claude Code connects to it as if talking to Anthropic's servers
Current Implementation
The developer runs 5 specialized agents, each with its own Telegram bot:
- Approval workflows with inline Telegram buttons (Approve/Reject/Tweak) for reviewing drafts from a phone
- Shared memory across agents via git synchronization
- Media generation (FLUX.1, Wan 2.2) dispatched to a GPU box
- Podcast pipeline with cloned voice TTS, triggered from a single Telegram message
Hardware Requirements
- 35B models: Run well on 64GB+ RAM Mac or 24GB GPU
- 235B models: Need 128-256GB RAM or multiple GPUs
- The developer recommends starting small and scaling as needed
The tmux bridge pattern is model-agnostic—it doesn't care what's running inside the session, allowing for easy swapping of underlying models. A full build guide for a single machine/agent is available, with multi-machine instructions coming soon.
📖 Read the full source: r/LocalLLaMA
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