What The Model

Website: powtac.github.io/wtm

What The Model is a native macOS inventory for locally stored LLMs. It explains which models are present, where their files live, how much storage they occupy, whether a download is incomplete, and which provider metadata belongs to each installation. Download: WTM.app

✨ Features

🎯 Core goals

• 🔎 Provider-neutral inventory across Ollama, Hugging Face, GGUF, Safetensors, and MLX-LM
• 💾 Honest storage attribution across internal and external local drives, including shared artifacts
• 🧬 Clear model identity, ownership, configuration, runtime, and evidence relationships
• 📊 Separate Stored, Loaded, Usable, and Old states instead of one misleading status
• 🧭 Detection of complete, incomplete, orphaned, and damaged local model collections
• 🖥️ Native macOS UX with safe, traceable, and preferably reversible actions

🚀 App features

• 🗂️ Explicit per-source consent, search, filtering, file details, and Finder reveal
• 🧹 Cleanup previews with dependency retention, conflict detection, Trash, and targeted rescans
• 🛡️ Redacted local audit, open-file blocking, and provider-aware deletion safeguards
• 🧪 Separate integrity, compatibility, health, validation, and real-inference evidence
• ⚡ Ollama loopback verification plus reviewed, identity-bound llama.cpp launch plans
• 🧰 Schema-validated runtime tools with visible executable and argument plans
• 🧩 Extendable adapters with separate storage, action, runtime, and client roles — see the technical adapter guide and current adapter sources
• 🔌 Reviewed OpenClaw and Unsloth client handoffs without silent configuration changes
• 📍 Passive menu bar status and independent Launch at Login setting
• 🪶 Low memory footprint for responsive inventory scans and everyday use
• 🔄 Automatic weekly update checks with manual download and installation through GitHub Releases
• 🔐 Signed, notarized, stapled releases with DMG verification, checksums, SBOM, and attestation
• 🔒 Privacy-preserving release checks without inventory, model, path, hardware, or telemetry data

See Requirements (German, normative) and the architecture for the exact scope and security boundaries. The ADR index records why durable constraints exist, and the roadmap records phase gates without weakening them into a generic MVP.

About WTM

The current build adds explicit runtime verification, a passive menu bar inventory, reviewed OpenClaw and Unsloth handoffs, and opt-in read-only MLX-LM storage discovery.

The product glossary defines the app's UI sections and canonical inventory vocabulary. The same glossary is available on the public website.

Build

Requirements:

• macOS 15 or later
• Apple Silicon
• Xcode 26.3 or later with Swift 6

cp .env.example .env.local
source .env.local
cp Config/Local.xcconfig.example Config/Local.xcconfig
# Set your Apple Developer Team ID in Config/Local.xcconfig.
open WTM.xcodeproj

Command-line verification:

./scripts/test

Build and launch the current Debug app through the project-local entrypoint:

./script/build_and_run.sh --verify

The Codex workspace exposes the same entrypoint as its Run action. The script also accepts --debug, --logs, and --telemetry; every mode stops an older WTM process and rebuilds before launching.

The labeled-control UI smoke test additionally requires macOS Developer Tools security. Hosted CI falls back to ad-hoc test-runner signing without hardened runtime:

sudo DevToolsSecurity -enable
./scripts/test-ui

The local configuration and .env.local are ignored by Git. The repository scripts read the local signing identity and Team ID from .env.local; signing certificates and notarization credentials must never be committed.

Release

Stable releases are created only by an exact vMAJOR.MINOR.PATCH tag through the protected release Environment. The workflow signs, notarizes, staples, mounts, copies, and starts the DMG payload before it publishes a GitHub Release. See GitHub configuration for the required Environment secrets. WTM checks that same official stable release channel at most once per seven days. Stable- release builds include a weekly privacy-preserving check against official GitHub Releases; WTM never auto-installs updates, opens a shell, automates Terminal, or downloads models. Installation remains manual.

Extend WTM

Read the public extension guide, the technical adapter guide, and the current adapter sources before proposing a provider or tool. Data-only definitions and compiled adapters have intentionally different capability and review requirements. The static website is versioned in website/ and deployed through GitHub Pages after every validated change on main.

License

Apache License 2.0. Test fixtures are generated placeholders and contain no model weights.

Installation

Manual

Download the current WTM 0.4.0 Apple Silicon DMG directly, verify it as shown below, then open the .dmg and drag WTM.app to Applications. WTM requires macOS 15 or later on Apple Silicon.

Verify the downloaded DMG before opening it:

curl -fLO "https://github.com/powtac/wtm/releases/download/v0.4.0/WTM-0.4.0-arm64.dmg"
curl -fL "https://github.com/powtac/wtm/releases/download/v0.4.0/WTM-0.4.0.sha256" -o checksums.sha256
shasum -a 256 --ignore-missing -c checksums.sha256

The checksum manifest must be in the same directory as the downloaded DMG. The commands above are pinned to the current public v0.4.0 release.

Homebrew Cask — not yet released

The Homebrew Cask definition is prepared in packaging/homebrew/Casks/wtm.rb, but the powtac/wtm tap is not published yet. Homebrew installation is therefore not available; use the verified manual download above. The Homebrew release guide explains the publication and update process.

When the tap is published, installation will be:

brew tap powtac/wtm
brew install --cask wtm

Homebrew releases will be managed from the GitHub Release and pin the exact DMG checksum; WTM does not distribute a formula or install model runtimes.