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Running an open-source AI agent on your own machines

An agent that works without depending on a vendor. In one day, your technical teams install an open-source agent and a local model on their own machine, give it real work, write reusable procedures and set the guardrails. The question "what leaves this machine?" is asked at every step, and answered by checking.

1 day (7 hours) OPCO or FIF-PL funding possible

Target audienceCIOs, CISOs, developers, system administrators, ops, AI leads: the technical people who equip the teams

What you'll be able to do

Tell a local agent from a hosted assistant, and name what leaves the machine in each case

Install an open-source agent and the local model suited to the hardware at hand

Give the agent a complete work task and check what it produces

Write a reusable procedure and decide when a separate agent profile is warranted

Set the guardrails for production use: approval, access separation, logging, pinned version

Programme

  1. Morning

    What a local open-source agent is

    • Assistant, agent, local agent: what each one does and does not do
    • The learning loop: the agent builds its own procedures, and what that means for review
    • What stays on the machine and what leaves: local model, tool gateway, web search, session summarisation
    • Demonstration: the same task run by a local agent and by a hosted assistant, network traces compared
  2. Morning

    Installation and choosing the model

    • Installation on the participant’s own machine, desktop mode
    • Reading your hardware: available memory, acceleration, a sensible model size
    • Two models compared on the same work prompt: quality, speed, language
    • The settings that matter: context length, temperature, where the working files live
  3. Morning

    The first useful agent

    • A real task from the participant’s own team
    • Writing the prompt: context, source, expected format, success criterion
    • A guided run, then the participant reviews what came out
    • Graded exercise: a second task run solo, end to end
  4. Afternoon

    Skills and profiles

    • A reusable procedure becomes a skill: structure, invocation, updates
    • When a separate agent profile is warranted: its own memory, its own access, its own authority
    • A decision tree and an eight-question test, handed to each participant
    • Exercise: sorting four team needs into prompt, skill, sub-agent or profile
  5. Afternoon

    Automating

    • Background tasks: starting them, tracking them, being notified without watching
    • Driving the browser on an internal web application, and what to forbid it
    • Surfaces: desktop, internal chat, command line
    • Exercise: a recurring team task scheduled and triggered
  6. Afternoon

    Guardrails and running it

    • Approval before anything goes out: sending, publishing, writing into a third-party system
    • Access separation: what the agent reads, what it must never see, where secrets live
    • Logging: what is recorded, where, and for how long
    • Release pace: why to pin a version in production, and how to run an upgrade
    • AI Act register, and the team usage note, written during the session

Practical information

Duration

1 day (7 hours)

Target audience

CIOs, CISOs, developers, system administrators, ops, AI leads: the technical people who equip the teams

Prerequisites

Everyday use of a computer and a terminal. No development skills required. Hardware: Apple Silicon Mac or recent PC, 16 GB of RAM, 30 GB of free disk space, administrator access. Compatibility and installation permission are checked during the needs analysis.

Group size

1 to 10 people

Pricing

€1,800 to €4,000 excl. VAT per group

OPCO funding possible.

Teaching approach

Participants install on their own machine, never on a demo workstation. The exercise tasks come from their own team and are collected during the initial assessment. One thread runs through the day: at every stage, which data leaves the machine, to whom, and in what form.

Assessment

Entry assessment, including a hardware check. One graded exercise per session, six in all. At the end, a before-and-after self-assessment of skills, then the trainer validates each learning objective (acquired, in progress, not acquired), recorded in the end-of-training certificate.

Trainer

Colombani.ai, a Qualiopi-certified training provider. The trainer is certified by Anthropic, holds certifications issued by OpenAI, and deploys agents on client engagements every week.

Booking lead time

At least 2 weeks between enrolment and the start of training.

Funding

Qualiopi-certified provider (certificate QUA009472), registered under training provider number 11757549975: OPCO or FIF-PL support can be requested. The decision rests with the funding body, based on your sector, its criteria and its budgets. Colombani.ai prepares the application with you.

Price per group, €1,800 to €4,000 excl. VAT, depending on group size and format: charged per group rather than per person. OPCO or FIF-PL funding can be requested depending on your status; the amount left to pay depends on the sum granted by the funding body.

Discuss this course (30 min) OPCO funding is discussed during the call.

Accessibility

This course is accessible to people with disabilities. Contact the disability officer in advance to discuss possible adjustments.

Ulysse Trin, [email protected]

Post-training support

✓ An agent installed and configured on the participant’s machine, with a suitable local model
✓ Two skills written during the day, one of them on a real team task
✓ One recurring automation scheduled and tested
✓ A one-page team usage note, and the "what leaves the machine" list
✓ Support for 30 days

Frequently asked questions

How does this differ from the "Local AI" course? +

"Local AI" answers "my data must not leave": the trainer installs everything, participants query their own documents, no terminal involved. This course answers "I want an agent that does the work": participants install it themselves, give it tasks and automate them. The audiences differ, and the two fit together within one organisation.

Is a paid subscription required? +

No. The agent and the models used are open source, the agent under the MIT licence. A subscription to a hosted model is optional and only serves the comparison made at the start of the day.

Our machines are managed by IT. Is that a blocker? +

That is settled before the session, not on the day. The needs analysis checks the hardware and the permission to install. Failing that, a loan machine or a lighter configuration is offered.

The tool moves fast. Will the materials be current? +

The version used is pinned for the session and recorded in the report, and the materials match that version. The day teaches practices that outlive releases: scoping a prompt, checking a result, setting a guardrail.

Got a project in mind?

Describe your situation. The first 30-minute call is free. Get a frank response within 48 hours.