LM Studio

LM Studio is a desktop app for running open models locally on your machine.

Install

There are two ways to connect LM Studio, depending on how you run OpenKnowledge:

• Desktop app (macOS, Windows, Linux). The first time you open a project, a consent dialog detects LM Studio and configures it for you. To re-trigger the dialog, choose File → Set up OpenKnowledge integrations….
• Web app / terminal (any platform, including Intel Macs — see the web app guide). Run ok init in your project: it registers the OpenKnowledge MCP server with LM Studio and the other editors it detects. Every ok start repairs the entry if it has drifted (it never adds one you removed).

After ok init writes the config, open LM Studio's Program tab and enable the open-knowledge server (LM Studio spawns a process per MCP server on save). The model you chat with must support tool use — see Pick a tool-capable model.

ok init writes the OpenKnowledge server into LM Studio's mcp.json, using the same resilient launcher every other editor gets — it finds ok whether you installed the desktop app or the npm CLI, so there's no PATH to configure. LM Studio follows Cursor's mcp.json notation, so the entry lands under a top-level mcpServers map.

Pick a tool-capable model

MCP tools only work when the chat model can call functions, and small local models vary a lot in how reliably they do. For the best results, load a model with strong tool-use / function-calling support and enough context to hold OK's tool descriptions. If the model answers in prose instead of calling exec / search / write, it either doesn't support tools or the server isn't enabled — check both before assuming OpenKnowledge is misconfigured.

Two surfaces: chat and agent mode

LM Studio has a chat and an agent mode, and what OpenKnowledge gives you differs between them.

The MCP server is app-wide, so ok init wires up both at once and the tools are there either way. Agent Skills exist only in agent mode. In chat you get the tools on their own. In agent mode you also get whatever skills are installed — which by default is the discovery skill, not the read/write contract; see Agent contract below for what that means in practice.

If you plan to have a model read and write a knowledge base rather than answer one-off questions, use agent mode.

Skills

Agent mode reads your skills from ~/.lmstudio/skills, where OpenKnowledge's user-global skills install like they do for any other tool. They show up under Bionic Skills in LM Studio's skills settings, available across all projects.

For a project, LM Studio reads .agents/skills in the project's working directory rather than a .lmstudio/ folder. That folder is shared ground rather than LM Studio's own, so OpenKnowledge offers it as a destination once it can see LM Studio installed, and never picks it for you: choose .agents when you install a project skill and LM Studio will find it. Nothing lands there until you choose it, and LM Studio does not create the folder itself.

The folder also appears in Settings → Skills → Folders, where it can be linked once it exists. Until then it is a destination only — OpenKnowledge will not create it by merging another tool's folder into it.

LM Studio can also read other tools' skill folders (~/.claude/skills, ~/.agents/skills, ~/.cursor/skills and more), listed under Use skills found in other apps. Those are off by default, and turning one on imports everything in that folder, not just OpenKnowledge's skills.

Verify

Load a tool-capable model, open a knowledge base, and ask:

“List the first 5 documents you come across in this project.”Copy

LM Studio should call the OpenKnowledge exec tool and respond with some of your documents.

If the model doesn't call the tool, confirm the open-knowledge server is toggled on in the Program tab and that the loaded model supports tool use.

Agent contract

The OpenKnowledge skill — the authoritative agent contract for tool use, grounding, and linking — is project-scoped. What installs into ~/.lmstudio/skills by default is the discovery skill; skill authoring is available alongside it. Between them they cover what OpenKnowledge is, how to open and install it, and how to write a skill, and deliberately do not carry the in-project read/write contract. LM Studio can receive that contract, but only through the .agents route above, so until you install a project skill there the contract for LM Studio is these two reminders:

• Markdown is MCP-owned. Inside an OK project, read and write .md / .mdx through OK's tools (exec, search, write, edit, links), not native shell or file tools — native access loses attribution and skips the frontmatter, backlinks, and history OK returns. This matters most in agent mode, where the model can run shell commands in your project folder.
• Discover before concluding the MCP is missing. Not seeing exec in the initial tool list isn't the escape hatch; reload the MCP servers first.

For the complete tool surface, see the MCP reference.

Troubleshooting

New to OpenKnowledge itself? Start with the quickstart for ok init and ok start.