local-horse born: $20k local agentic-coding builds priced (workhorse vs feral cats), model tiers, DRAM-crisis gotcha

Rumination 2026-07-17, not a purchase order. Front-door README + NOTES N-1..N-4 + BUILDS.md. [ezra]
2026-07-17 11:02:54 -04:00
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+# local-horse — pricing & planning a local LLM box for agentic coding
+
+> ### 📖 READ THESE FIRST — don't re-derive, don't build blind
+> Before suggesting, changing, or buying anything on this project:
+> - **[`NOTES.md`](NOTES.md)** — the running findings log (`N-1…`): the K3 cost math that started this, the RAM crisis, the decision lean.
+> - **[`BUILDS.md`](BUILDS.md)** — the two priced builds (workhorse / feral cats) with the models each can run. **Prices dated 2026-07-17; the market is volatile — re-price before buying.**
+> - **Weave** — `admin/silas/SCRATCHPAD.md` threads + ledger lines = live state / open lines.
+
+## What it is
+
+A **rumination, not a purchase order** (status as of 2026-07-17). jhestyr asked what it would take to
+run local models — first "something like Kimi K3," then specifically **agentic coding like we do at the
+counter**, best-in-class around **$20k**. This repo holds the priced-out answer so future-us doesn't
+re-derive it: two build shapes, the models each runs, honest capability tiers, and the market caveats
+that will invalidate the numbers over time.
+
+The trigger was real data: repricing the lassiter-creek-adventure-game's build (10 sessions, Jul 5–17,
+from local transcripts) showed **1.15B cache-read tokens vs 3.5M output** — agentic coding is ~99%
+re-reading context. That shape drives every hardware conclusion here (prefill/memory-bandwidth is the
+bottleneck, not generation speed).
+
+Standing constraints from jhestyr: **no Mac** ("not interested in the mac approach"). Not that fancy a
+man. Any coffee is coffee as long as it's not burnt.
+
+## How we work
+Read-first · write the note where next-me reads it · **verify it landed** · talk before building · one thing
+at a time · don't over-fix. The state of truth is this repo — keep it self-narrating.