- prerequisites
- Intermediate command line • Basic Docker and Docker Model Runner • Basic pi agent setup , Basic JSON and HTML, a free Token Station account
- skills learned
- Send images to a local multimodal model • OCR and translation in one call • build a web page from a sketch with an agent • run a domain-specialized model (MedGemma) • hybrid local-and-cloud inference through Token Station
pro $24.99 per month
- access to all Manning books, MEAPs, liveVideos, liveProjects, and audiobooks!
- choose one free eBook per month to keep
- exclusive 50% discount on all purchases
- renews monthly, pause or cancel renewal anytime
lite $19.99 per month
- access to all Manning books, including MEAPs!
team
5, 10 or 20 seats+ for your team - learn more
Look inside
Socratic liveProjects pair you with an AI tutor to help you learn by doing, in real time.
In this liveProject, you’ll take the company’s local AI rollout to the next level by giving its agents the ability to work with images as well as text. You’ll enhance prebuilt agents to process site photos, printed notices, and whiteboard sketches, turning visual information into useful answers and working web pages. You’ll also explore how fine-tuned open-weight models can be adapted for specialized business knowledge, and how local and cloud models can work together in a hybrid setup. By the end, you’ll have a practical path for combining private, specialized local AI with cloud models when additional capabilities are needed.
This project is a part of the series Open LLMs on Your Own Computer.
This project is designed for learning purposes and is not a complete, production-ready application or solution.
prerequisites
This liveProject is for developers and IT professionals who want to use a local model’s vision capabilities and see how a small open weights model can be specialized for domain knowledge. To begin this liveProject, you will need to know the following:
TOOLS- Basics of JSON
- Basics of HTML
- Basics of LLMs and agents
features
- Self-paced
- You choose the schedule and decide how much time to invest as you build your project.
- Project roadmap
- Each project is divided into several achievable steps.
- Get Help
- While within the liveProject platform, get help from fellow participants and even more help with paid sessions with our expert mentors.
- Compare with others
- For each step, compare your deliverable to the solutions by the author and other participants.
- books included as resources
- Get full access to select books for 90 days. Permanent access to excerpts from Manning products are also included, as well as references to other resources.
choose your plan
pro
monthly
annual
$24.99
$249.99
only $20.83 per month
- access to all Manning books, MEAPs, liveVideos, liveProjects, and audiobooks!
- choose another free product every time you renew
- choose twelve free products per year
- exclusive 50% discount on all purchases
- renews monthly, pause or cancel renewal anytime
- renews annually, pause or cancel renewal anytime
-
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Multimodal and Specialized Agents Based on Local AI project for free
Multimodal and Specialized Agents Based on Local AI project for free
team
monthly
annual
$49.99
$499.99
only $41.67 per month
- five seats for your team
- access to all Manning books, MEAPs, liveVideos, liveProjects, and audiobooks!
- choose another free product every time you renew
- choose twelve free products per year
- exclusive 50% discount on all purchases
- renews monthly, pause or cancel renewal anytime
- renews annually, pause or cancel renewal anytime
-
![]()
Multimodal and Specialized Agents Based on Local AI project for free
