Offline Usage
DarkGrid is designed to be fully usable with no internet connection. This page explains exactly what needs a connection (briefly, once) and what never does.
What needs internet — once
| Action | Why | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Downloading a model | Models are fetched from Hugging Face | Once per model |
| Downloading a Wikipedia archive | ZIM files are fetched from Kiwix | Once per archive |
After these one-time downloads, disconnect and everything keeps working.
What never needs internet
- Running the model and generating answers (all local, on-device inference).
- Searching Wikipedia (the ZIM archive's index is on your disk).
- Searching and indexing your references (local vector database).
- Saving and loading conversations and settings.
Nothing you type and nothing the app retrieves is ever sent anywhere. There is no telemetry and no cloud component.
Going fully off-grid (air-gapped) setup
To use DarkGrid on a machine that will never touch the internet:
- On a connected machine, install DarkGrid and run the setup wizard to download the model(s) and Wikipedia archive(s) you want, and add your reference folders.
- Copy the entire data directory to the offline machine (same path per
Getting Started):
- macOS:
~/Library/Application Support/darkgrid-ai - Linux:
~/.local/share/darkgrid-ai - Windows:
%APPDATA%\darkgrid-ai
- macOS:
- Install the app on the offline machine and launch it. It will find the pre-populated models and knowledge base — no downloads needed.
You can also place files manually: drop your model files into models/, .zim
archives into kb/zims/, then re-add your reference folders.
Verifying you're truly offline
Turn off Wi‑Fi / unplug the network and start a conversation. If you have a model loaded and a knowledge base set up, answers and citations should work exactly as before. The sidebar's backend indicator stays green because the backend is local.
Power & storage tips for preparedness
- Prefer a smaller model (see Choosing a Model) on battery — it uses less CPU/GPU and responds faster.
- Wikipedia archives are large; keep the one that fits your storage and needs. Simple English Wikipedia is ~1 GB and covers a lot of practical ground.
- Keep a copy of your populated data directory on external storage as a backup.