Default model selector
When you start a fresh chat, which model should it open with? Settings → General → Default model answers that question. Three modes, picked according to how predictable you want new chats to feel.
The three modes
- Use most recent (default) - pick up wherever you left off. New chats open in the last model you picked from a chat’s model dropdown (or the one you chose during setup).
- Pin to provider - Use last Ollama model or Use last OpenAI model: the model of your most recently active chat on that provider. Useful if you bounce between Ollama and a hosted endpoint but always want one of them for new chats. With no chats on that provider yet, it falls back to your most recent model if that one is on the same provider; otherwise a new chat opens with no model selected until you pick one from the header.
- A specific model - choose one from the Ollama models or OpenAI models lists in the same menu to always start in that exact model, regardless of what you used last. The lists show the models Loach last loaded - at launch, or when you open or refresh the Models page - so if a section is missing, start Ollama or save your API key, then open the Models page to load them.
Deleting a model on the Models page unpins it: a specific-model setting goes back to Use most recent, and if it was also your most recent model, new chats open with no model selected until you pick one.
The Preload on startup switch sits right under the picker and warms the model this setting resolves to, when that is an Ollama model.
What can override it
The global default is the last word for plain new chats. But:
- Chats started inside a Space use the Space’s own model when one is set - the Default model card on the Space’s Settings tab. Its picker (the same one Snippets use) starts with a Default model entry, “from Settings”, which unpins it so the Space follows this setting. Deleting the pinned model also unpins it.
- Chats started by Run on a Snippet - from the Snippets library or the search palette - use that Snippet’s pinned model when set. Run in Space starts the chat in a Space you choose, and the Snippet’s pinned model still beats that Space’s.
- New chat on a model’s tile or in the Models editor opens a chat in that model.
- Switching the model in the chat header always wins for that conversation onwards.