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what is thundermlx fr?

jonathan308/thundermlx — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

2PythonAudience · developerComplexity · 5/5Setup · hard

tl;dr

A Python project that fuses two Apple Silicon Macs over Thunderbolt 5 into one machine that runs the 428-billion-parameter MiniMax-M3 AI model as a private, always on server.

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mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Fuses two Macs
      Runs MiniMax-M3
      OpenAI style API
    Tech stack
      Python
      Apple Silicon
      Thunderbolt 5
      MLX
    Use cases
      Local AI coding server
      Agent tool calling
      Long context sessions
    Audience
      AI power users
      Mac hardware tinkerers

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what do people make with this?

VIBE 1

Run a very large AI language model locally by combining two Mac computers instead of buying cloud GPU access.

VIBE 2

Serve an OpenAI-compatible API endpoint that existing coding assistants like Codex or Claude Code can connect to.

VIBE 3

Keep long AI agent sessions fast by caching conversation context across memory and SSD tiers.

VIBE 4

Monitor request activity, cache hits, and memory health on both machines through a live dashboard.

what's the stack?

PythonApple SiliconThunderbolt 5MLXMiniMax-M3

how it stacks up fr

jonathan308/thundermlx0-bingwu-0/live-interpreter010zx00x1/faresnipe
Stars222
LanguagePythonPythonPython
Setup difficultyhardmoderateeasy
Complexity5/52/52/5
Audiencedevelopergeneralgeneral

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

how do i run it?

Difficulty · hard time til it works · 1day+

Requires two specific high-memory Apple Silicon Macs connected by Thunderbolt 5, plus enough combined RAM to hold a 428 billion parameter model.

in plain english

ThunderMLX is a Python project that lets two Apple Silicon Mac computers work together as one machine to run a very large AI language model called MiniMax-M3, which has 428 billion parameters. Neither Mac alone has enough memory to hold this model, so ThunderMLX splits it across a Mac Studio with 256GB of memory and a MacBook Pro with 128GB of memory, connecting them with a fast Thunderbolt 5 cable so they can share the workload as if they were a single computer. The result behaves like a private, always on AI server sitting on someone's desk. It exposes the same kind of API that OpenAI's services use, so existing coding assistants and chat tools can talk to it without special changes. The README lists a wide range of client programs that have been tested against it, including tools like Codex, Claude Code, and OpenWebUI, and describes support for live streaming of the model's step by step thinking, tool calling for AI agents, and the ability to cancel a request in progress without leaving the system in a broken state. To keep responses fast even on long conversations, the project stores recent context in a tiered cache, keeping the most active sessions in memory and moving older ones to SSD storage so they can be reloaded quickly instead of reprocessed from scratch. The README reports detailed speed measurements from real testing, describing generation speeds in the twenties of tokens per second and time to first response often under two seconds, along with a set of safeguards meant to detect and stop the model if it gets stuck repeating itself. The project also includes simple desktop commands to start, stop, and restore the whole system to a known working state, along with a live dashboard that shows request activity, cache performance, and memory health on both machines. The README documents multiple rounds of real world testing with different coding assistants to confirm the setup keeps working reliably during long agent sessions involving file edits and tool use.

prompts (copy fr)

prompt 1
Help me understand the hardware requirements needed to run ThunderMLX across two Macs.
prompt 2
Explain how ThunderMLX's tiered KV cache keeps long agent sessions fast.
prompt 3
Walk me through connecting a coding assistant like Codex to a ThunderMLX server.
prompt 4
Help me interpret the performance numbers in this README to estimate real-world speed.

Frequently asked questions

what is thundermlx fr?

A Python project that fuses two Apple Silicon Macs over Thunderbolt 5 into one machine that runs the 428-billion-parameter MiniMax-M3 AI model as a private, always on server.

What language is thundermlx written in?

Mainly Python. The stack also includes Python, Apple Silicon, Thunderbolt 5.

How hard is thundermlx to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated hard, with roughly 1day+ to a first successful run.

Who is thundermlx for?

Mainly developer.

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