A team can run Continue entirely on models it hosts if each role gets a model sized for it. Autocomplete needs a small fill-in-the-middle model, chat and agent work need the largest model the hardware serves quickly, and codebase search needs an embeddings model.
When you need this
- Code must stay on company machines or the company network.
- You want inline completion without paying for a seat.
- Engineers report slow, empty, or garbled completions on local models.
- You are sizing a shared model server for a team.
Evaluation criteria
Give autocomplete its own model
Is the completion model trained for fill-in-the-middle?
Look forContinue recommends qwen2.5-coder 1.5B on Ollama for local autocomplete, or Codestral through the Mistral API. Autocomplete draws the most complaints, and 12 of the 16 accounts that discuss it are critical. One poster got only irrelevant suggestions on two RTX 4090s, and another saw raw fill-in-the-middle tokens in the editor. Pilot autocomplete on its own before you count on it.
Size the chat and agent model
Does the model call tools reliably at a speed engineers accept?
Look forPick the largest model your hardware serves quickly. Engineers report good agent-mode results from larger Qwen models and gpt-oss-120b, and about 50 tokens a second from Qwen3-Coder 30B on a 64GB laptop. On smaller Qwen and Gemma models, tool calls fail or need reminders.
Choose how to serve it
Will each engineer run a model, or will the team share one server?
Look forRun Ollama, LM Studio, or llama.cpp on each workstation, or vLLM or TGI on a shared server reached through the OpenAI provider with its base URL set to that server. One Hacker News commenter connects Continue to an employer's Ollama GPU server and sets every model in config.yaml. A remote Ollama server has to be set to listen beyond localhost.
Plan for air-gapped machines
Can Continue install and run with no internet access?
Look forInstall the extension from a VSIX, point config.yaml at local models, and restart. Open VSX offers the 2.0.0 VSIX for each platform, while GitHub Releases carry VSIX files only up to the June 15 builds. Codebase indexing uses LanceDB, which needs AVX2 and FMA on x64 Linux. Without them, chat and autocomplete still work.
Handle corporate networks
Will requests pass the proxy and certificate checks?
Look forSet requestOptions.caBundlePath on each model for custom certificates, add a client certificate where the server requires mutual TLS, and rely on VS Code's own proxy support on proxied networks. Test autocomplete separately from chat. A company self-hosting Codestral found its trusted self-signed certificate worked for chat and failed for completion. An IntelliJ user behind an SSL-intercepting proxy had to set OS-level variables because the plugin ignored the proxy settings in config.yml.
Test on your own code first
Is the local model good enough for your codebase?
Look forPilot on your own repository before you standardize. Engineers split on this. Some report usable local results for most daily work, and others found local models far behind Codex or Claude and kept cloud models for coding.
Questions to ask vendors
- Which roles must stay on local models, and which can use a cloud endpoint the company controls?
- What tokens-per-second does our chat model reach on the hardware engineers actually have?
- Who maintains the shared model server, and who decides when its models change?
- How will we notice when a model update breaks tool calling or autocomplete?
Red flags
- A general chat model assigned to autocomplete.
- A shared Ollama server exposed on the network with no authentication in front of it.
- Models standardized from a benchmark without a pilot on your own repository.
- Air-gapped machines updating the extension from the Marketplace instead of a reviewed VSIX.
Products in this piece
Sources
- Official documentation
- 10
- Public source
- 11
- Continue docs: Autocomplete setup
- Continue docs: Model providers overview
- Continue docs: How to self-host a model
- Continue docs: Ollama guide
- Continue docs: Running Continue without internet
- Continue on Open VSX
- Continue releases on GitHub
- Continue docs: FAQs
- Continue docs: config.yaml reference
- Continue docs: Troubleshooting
- GitHub issue #5115: a trusted self-signed certificate works for chat but not autocomplete (Apr 11, 2025)
- GitHub issue #12956: proxy and verifySsl settings ignored behind a corporate proxy (Jul 7, 2026; not a Signals source)
- Hacker News, dataflow: raw fill-in-the-middle tokens in Continue autocomplete (Apr 16, 2026)
- Reddit r/LocalLLaMA, theboldestgaze: Any joy with continue.dev? (Jan 7, 2025)
- Reddit r/LocalLLaMA, ChangeIsHard_: Local auto-complete for coding? (Feb 4, 2025)
- Hacker News, dust42: Qwen3-Coder 30B with continue.dev at about 50 tokens a second (Oct 31, 2025)
- Hacker News, navbaker: Qwen models and gpt-oss-120b in Continue agent mode (Aug 10, 2025)
- Hacker News, Balinares: Qwen3 Coder needs reminders to call tools under continue.dev (Nov 1, 2025)
- GitHub issue #12131: Qwen 3.5 and Gemma 4 tool calls not registered (Apr 13, 2026)
- Hacker News, wongarsu: continue.dev on an employer's Ollama GPU server (Oct 31, 2025)
- Hacker News, y42: local Qwen in Continue is far from Codex or Claude for coding (May 11, 2026)