Local Models

usertrust governs local (self-hosted) inference with the same two-phase spend, audit chain, and receipts as cloud calls. The endpoint -- not the model string -- picks the settlement regime: a call to Ollama on localhost settles at nominal local rates, a call to a paid API settles at cloud rates. Renaming a local model (ollama cp llama3.2 gpt-4o) cannot change the regime in either direction.

Free inference stays inside governance, not exempt from it.

Endpoint Classification

Every governed client is classified local or cloud by inspecting its baseURL. Classification runs in a fixed order -- the first rule that applies wins:

1. Explicit override -- an override passed by the caller wins over everything.
2. No readable baseURL -- absent or malformed URLs classify as cloud. Never throws.
3. endpoints[] matchers -- first matching config entry wins.
4. Loopback autodetect -- localhost, 127.0.0.1, ::1, and the IPv4-mapped IPv6 loopback classify as local when local.autoDetectLoopback is true (the default). The port hints the runtime: 11434 = ollama, 1234 = lmstudio, 8000 = vllm, anything else = openai-compat.
5. Cloud default -- anything unmatched is cloud.

The default is fail-expensive by design: over-charging free inference at cloud rates is recoverable; under-charging a paid endpoint is not.

Endpoint Matchers

Each endpoints[] entry matches the client's baseURL in exactly one of three forms -- never raw string prefixing:

// .usertrust/usertrust.config.json
{
	"budget": 500000,
	"endpoints": [
		{ "match": "http://gpu-box:8000", "class": "local", "runtime": "vllm" },
		{ "match": "*.gpu.internal", "class": "local" }
	]
}

Origin equality is deliberate: prefix matching would let http://gpu-box:8000.evil.com or http://gpu-box:8000@evil.com classify as local. Origin comparison kills both shapes.

Nominal Metering

Local-scope rate resolution never touches the cloud pricing table:

1. local.models exact match
2. Longest trailing-star glob ("llama3.3*", "*")
3. local.defaultRate -- { inputPer1k: 0, outputPer1k: 0 } by default

Every call cost is floored at 1 usertoken -- zero-amount ledger transfers are invalid -- so a {0,0}-rate local call settles at exactly 1 nominal usertoken. Real token counts are still metered: for local OpenAI-compatible streams, stream_options: { include_usage: true } is auto-injected (local.injectUsageOptions, default true) so settlement uses server-truth counts instead of estimates.

Why Budgets Still Bind

Nominal metering is not an exemption. Every governed local call still places a PENDING hold, settles at least 1 usertoken, and lands on the audit chain -- so runaway loops burn budget, anomaly governance still fires, and every governed call has a receipt. The receipt carries the provenance:

For GPU showback, set local.rateClass: "amortized-usd" and per-model rates in local.models -- local calls then settle at your amortized chargeback rate (1 usertoken = $0.0001, as usual) instead of the nominal floor.

unknownModelPolicy

Only cloud-scope calls can hit an unknown model -- local scope always resolves to local rates. When a model misses customRates, the pricing table, and prefix matching, unknownModelPolicy decides:

Security Posture

Endpoint classification -- config matchers, overrides, and loopback autodetect -- is a trusted-operator decision. Never wire it to end-user or request input. This is the same trust boundary as budget and customRates: the config author already controls billing entirely.

A compromised local server can under-report usage. Receipts expose usageSource and meter.rateSource precisely so that this is auditable.

Try It

The examples/ollama-local-governance demo shows the before/after -- frontier fallback billing vs. nominal local settlement -- plus the model-spoofing defense. It works against a live Ollama on localhost:11434 or an inline mock server, in dryRun mode against throwaway temp vaults. No TigerBeetle needed.

npm install
cd examples/ollama-local-governance
npx tsx run.ts