mold

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Remote Workflows ​

One of mold's best deployment patterns is simple:

  • run mold serve on the GPU machine
  • point MOLD_HOST at it from everywhere else

That gives you local-first ergonomics with remote GPU horsepower.

Basic Laptop → GPU Server ​

On the GPU host:

bash
mold serve --bind 0.0.0.0 --port 7680

From your laptop or devbox:

bash
export MOLD_HOST=http://gpu-host:7680
mold run "a cinematic portrait"
  1. mold pull models on the GPU host, not from every client machine.
  2. Keep the server running so models stay warm between requests.
  3. Use mold ps to confirm the client can reach the server.
  4. Set HF_TOKEN on the server if you use gated Hugging Face repos.

OpenClaw and Discord ​

Remote workflows pair well with both:

In both cases, the key variable is still MOLD_HOST.

LM Studio MCP ​

mold mcp starts a stdio MCP server that exposes mold generation tools to LM Studio and other MCP hosts. It talks to the normal mold serve HTTP API, so keep the server running separately.

bash
mold serve --bind 127.0.0.1 --port 7680

In LM Studio, open the Program tab, choose Install → Edit mcp.json, and add an entry like this:

json
{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mold": {
      "command": "/absolute/path/to/mold",
      "args": ["mcp", "--host", "http://localhost:7680"],
      "timeout": 300000
    }
  }
}

The MCP server exposes synchronous generate_image, timeout-friendly generate_image_async / generation_status, gallery tools list_gallery / get_gallery_image, list_models, list_loras, and server_status. Generation tools accept a loras array using ids or paths returned by list_loras; object entries can omit scale to use 1.0. Use the async generation flow for cold model loads or slow generations so LM Studio does not need to keep one tool call open until the image is finished. Set MOLD_API_KEY in the MCP process environment when the mold server requires one.

Remote Pulls vs Local Pulls ​

Behavior depends on where the command runs:

  • mold pull against a reachable server downloads onto that server
  • if no server is reachable, the CLI falls back to local pulling

That distinction matters if your laptop has little disk space or no GPU.

Example Multi-Client Setup ​

MachineRole
GPU hostRuns mold serve, stores model files
LaptopRuns mold run, mold list, mold ps
Discord workerRuns mold discord or mold serve --discord
OpenClaw hostUses mold via MOLD_HOST

Deployment Choices ​

Remote Troubleshooting ​

If remote generation fails:

  • verify MOLD_HOST
  • check firewall and bind address
  • run mold ps
  • hit /health directly with curl
bash
curl http://gpu-host:7680/health
curl http://gpu-host:7680/api/status