Workers

A worker is a process that connects to the ModelReins coordinator, pulls jobs from the queue, and processes them using a configured provider.

Starting a worker

modelreins worker start --name my-laptop --provider ollama

Worker lifecycle

1. Register — worker announces itself to the coordinator with its name, provider, and capabilities.
2. Poll — worker checks the queue for jobs matching its provider.
3. Process — worker sends the job to its provider and streams the result back.
4. Report — worker marks the job complete and updates cost/token metrics.

Configuration

{
  "worker": {
    "name": "my-laptop",
    "provider": "ollama",
    "concurrency": 2,
    "tags": ["local", "code-review"]
  }
}

Managing workers

modelreins worker list              # See all workers
modelreins worker info <id>         # Details on one worker
modelreins worker pause <id>        # Stop picking up jobs
modelreins worker resume <id>       # Resume picking up jobs
modelreins worker stop <id>         # Disconnect and shut down

Tags and routing

Workers can have tags that routing rules match against. This lets you send specific job types to specific machines. See Routing for details.