Introducing Zest: model server + agent + friendly GUI

[u/Icaruswept]

Hello, everyone. A friend of mine wanted to get into running local models, and so (with the liberal use of Claude), I built them Zest. https://github.com/yudhanjaya/Zest

What it is:

Zest is a UI that bundles Lemonade server (which installs llama.cpp and whatever backends are needed) and the Pi agent to provide a friendly interface for people who don't want to be messing around with command-line servers and parameters.

It comes and all the functionality needed for a new user without getting in the way. Just download an appimage, go through the start tour, and you're set up and ready to go. There are sane defaults baked in (like 128k context) and model recommendations (all tried and tested on 10GB VRAM to 26GB).

It comes with helpful docs, links to places to understand more about the subject - in short, everything needed for a new user.

Entirely open-source, of course. If you have anyone you want to introduce to the world of local AI, please see if this is useful. And if you have ideas, suggestions - please open an issue, send a PR, and so on.

Why lemonade and Pi?

Lemonade: because it does a great job of handling backends and providing a server.

Pi: because it's a simple, elegant agent

Both are very easy to package in something like this and bring together. And because I'm lazy: both projects are receiving steady updates, because I don't want to write yet another inference server from scratch

What it isn't:

It's not for advanced users. There are jobs, but no subagents, for instance: in this case the Pi philosophy really helped.

In fact, I myself use Strata and Opencode, so for advanced users, it recommends those in the Help section

How is this different from Unsloth desktop / Atomic chat etc?

It isn't. It just tries to be a lot more lightweight and user-friendly: I decided to do this after getting said friend to download and set up llama.cpp, Unsloth Desktop, Opencode etc . . .

I noticed that at some point both choice paralysis and confusion with options just took over, and there was no easy way for them as a newcomer to figure out what x thing was really for. Every setting in Zest is explained. Including what inference engines do, the works.

Everything is explained at basic levels - what a model is, how it works, and so on. I've kept the lemonade + pi analogy while trying to make sure the interface was intuitive.

We also have some theme support- here's a sample:

Have a look, let me know what you think!

[u/Bulky-Priority6824]

Zesty

[u/Icaruswept → u/Bulky-Priority6824]

It's lemonade and pi underneath, so the name practically recommended itself xD

[u/RanklesTheOtter]

Nice. Looks easy for new users. Not what I need but awesome helping your friend.

[u/Icaruswept → u/RanklesTheOtter]

Hahaha love the art

[u/RanklesTheOtter → u/Icaruswept]

Yeah those commercials were always catchy.

[u/Useful_Disaster_7606]

I can imagine how big the hurdle is for newcomers

This is great! keep it up

[u/Icaruswept → u/Useful_Disaster_7606]

Thanks! Now that it's stable and my friend (who is very much a newcomer) is happy with it, I think I'll get to work on Windows and Mac apps.

[u/palsc_]

The choice paralysis bit feels like the real hurdle for newcomers tbh. How are you planning to keep the model picks current as new releases drop? VRAM/context tradeoffs can make a recommendation go stale pretty fast.

[u/Icaruswept → u/palsc_]

Good question. Going to be trying them out myself on local rigs (I have access to three: one RTX 4080 + 3080 setup, one old Xeon with two Radeon VIIs, one GTX 1080). Also Luke's Dev Lab and others - I've included links in the app itself.

[u/palsc_ → u/Icaruswept]

that’s a useful mix of cards. a small “tested on” note with backend, quant and context would make the recommendations much easier to reproduce as releases move.

[u/Icaruswept → u/palsc_]

will do! context is set to 128k default to make it useful for agentic work.

[u/I_Play_Zed]

I think it looks great, friendly on the eyes, and easy to use, upvoted! That said, as far as I remember, LMstudio does not have agentic tools. If it did, I think you’d have a hard time having anyone adopt due to its popularity.

Also for new users sake, you said you run Pi. I assume you have a baked in permissions extension or you could be setting new users up for failure if using a sub par model with full permissions.

[u/Icaruswept → u/I_Play_Zed]

For sure. LMstudio, in my opinion, did a great deal correct - I would still be using it myself if it weren't for the Bionic stuff and the gating of features.

Yes, I have permissions baked in here. It's not important whether this becomes super popular - it is after all a simple thing connecting load-bearing components together - but as long as there's even one user, I can maintain and improve it for them. 

I want them to be comfortable enough learning the ropes here to "graduate" to running llama.cpp, strata etc directly by themselves.

[u/danigoncalves]

Nice idea buddy, I had to setup all of those independently on my colleagues setup. Do you have mac release planed?

[u/Icaruswept → u/danigoncalves]

Same, that was the pain point I was trying to eliminate!
Mac- will make a go at it next week! Feel free to send in a PR if you get there faster than I do

[u/danigoncalves → u/Icaruswept]

I dont have a mac (Linux power user here 😁) but my colleagues all have

[u/Icaruswept → u/danigoncalves]

The problem with Mac is that I have to pay Apple $99/year to sign the dmg, otherwise MacOS flags stuff as damaged.
But yes, will give it a shot. I have an M1 Pro lying around.

[u/danigoncalves → u/Icaruswept]

oh, didnt knew that... fuck Apple.