Ollama Patterns

Quick Guide: Use the ollama npm package to run LLMs locally. Use ollama.chat() for conversations and ollama.generate() for single prompts. Enable streaming with stream: true and iterate with for await. Use format with a JSON schema (via zodToJsonSchema) for structured outputs. Use tools array for function calling. Use ollama.embed() for embeddings. Models run on your machine -- no API keys required for local use, but be aware of model loading time and memory usage.

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CRITICAL: Before Using This Skill

(You MUST use ollama.chat() for conversations and ollama.generate() for single-prompt completions -- they have different parameter shapes)

(You MUST handle model loading delays -- the first request after a model is loaded takes significantly longer due to model initialization)

(You MUST use zodToJsonSchema() from zod-to-json-schema for structured outputs -- do NOT manually construct JSON schemas)

(You MUST accumulate streamed thinking, content, and tool_calls fields to maintain conversation history in multi-turn interactions)

(You MUST never assume a model is already pulled -- check with ollama.list() or handle errors from missing models gracefully)