What is daari?¶
daari (Telugu: path, way) is an open-source local-first LLM execution router under Apache 2.0. One process on your machine owns policy, cache, tools, and model selection. Frontier APIs are a last resort.
Router, not proxy¶
| Typical proxy (e.g. LiteLLM) | daari |
|---|---|
| Fan-out to many cloud providers | Prefer on-device tiers first |
| Keys and rate limits for cloud | Cache + tools + local models cut spend |
| Observability of provider calls | Measured cache trust + savings ledger |
daari is for developers and product teams who want local execution with a controlled escalation path—not a marketplace of 100+ remote models.
What it owns¶
- Gateways — OpenAI, Anthropic Messages, Responses API, Ollama facade, MCP
- Routing — Ordered tiers from exact cache through local models to frontier
- Trust — False-hit monitoring, optional product boundaries, guardrails
- Clients — One-click setup for Cursor, Claude Code, JetBrains, VS Code
- Learning — Opt-in feedback and fine-tune loop on your machine
When to use it¶
- IDE agents burning frontier tokens on repeatable work
- B2C/SaaS chat that must stay inside a product domain (boundaries)
- Teams that want org shared cache / fleet bootstrap without a hosted SaaS