lms — LM Studio's CLI

Install `lms`

lms ships with LM Studio, so you don't need to do any additional installation steps if you have LM Studio installed.

Just open a terminal window and run lms:

lms --help

Open source

lms is MIT Licensed and is developed in this repository on GitHub: https://github.com/lmstudio-ai/lms

Command quick links

Command	Syntax	Docs
Chat in the terminal	`lms chat`	Guide
Download models	`lms get`	Guide
List your models	`lms ls`	Guide
See models loaded into memory	`lms ps`	Guide
Control the server	`lms server start`	Guide
Manage the inference runtime	`lms runtime`	Guide
Manage the headless daemon	`lms daemon`	Guide
Manage LM Link	`lms link`	Guide

Verify the installation

Info

👉 You need to run LM Studio at least once before you can use lms.

Open a terminal window and run lms.

Terminal

$ lms

lms is LM Studio's CLI utility for your models, server, and inference runtime. (v0.0.47)

Usage: lms [options] [command]

Local models
   chat               Start an interactive chat with a model
   get                Search and download models
   load               Load a model
   unload             Unload a model
   ls                 List the models available on disk
   ps                 List the models currently loaded in memory
   import             Import a model file into LM Studio

Serve
   server             Commands for managing the local server
   log                Log incoming and outgoing messages

Runtime
   runtime            Manage and update the inference runtime

Develop & Publish (Beta)
   clone              Clone an artifact from LM Studio Hub to a local folder
   push               Uploads the artifact in the current folder to LM Studio Hub
   dev                Starts a plugin dev server in the current folder
   login              Authenticate with LM Studio

Learn more:           https://lmstudio.ai/docs/developer
Join our Discord:     https://discord.gg/lmstudio

Use `lms` to automate and debug your workflows

Start and stop the local server

lms server start
lms server stop

Learn more about lms server.

List the local models on the machine

lms ls

Learn more about lms ls.

This will reflect the current LM Studio models directory, which you set in 📂 My Models tab in the app.

List the currently loaded models

lms ps

Learn more about lms ps.

Load a model (with options)

lms load [--gpu=max|auto|0.0-1.0] [--context-length=1-N]

--gpu=1.0 means 'attempt to offload 100% of the computation to the GPU'.

Optionally, assign an identifier to your local LLM:

lms load openai/gpt-oss-20b --identifier="my-model-name"

This is useful if you want to keep the model identifier consistent.

Unload a model

lms unload [--all]

Learn more about lms load and unload.