LM Studio website screenshot

LM Studio

LM Studio is a desktop application for discovering, downloading, and running large language models (Llama, DeepSeek, Phi, Qwen, gpt-oss, and others) locally on macOS, Windows, and Linux. It runs GGUF and MLX models via llama.cpp and Apple's MLX engine, and ships a local HTTP server that developers can drive from their own apps: a native LM Studio REST API (beta) under /api/v1 with generation stats, model load/unload/download and MCP-via-API, an OpenAI-compatible surface under /v1 (chat/completions, completions, embeddings, models, responses), and an Anthropic-compatible /v1/messages endpoint. It is complemented by Python (lmstudio) and TypeScript (@lmstudio/sdk) SDKs, the MIT-licensed lms command-line tool, headless/daemon operation, LM Link cross-device routing, and MCP host support. Backed by Matrix Partners.

LM Studio publishes 4 APIs on the APIs.io network, including Anthropic Compatibility API, Chat API, Models API, and 1 more. Tagged areas include Company, Ai, Local LLM, Machine Learning, and Inference.

LM Studio’s developer surface includes documentation, API reference, getting-started guide, engineering blog, support, CLI, authentication, and 18 more developer resources.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub
44.1/100 thin ▬ flat Agent 51/100 agent ready Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
AccessSelf serve
4 APIs 1 MCP Servers
CompanyAiLocal LLMMachine LearningInferenceDeveloper ToolsLLMMCPSDKDesktop Application

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
Composite quality — 44.1/100 · thin
Contract Quality 13.0 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 16.1 / 20
Commercial Clarity 4.2 / 20
Operational Transparency 2.1 / 13
Governance 0.0 / 12
Discoverability 8.8 / 10
Agent readiness — 51/100 · agent ready
Machine-Readable Contract 18 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 0 / 15
MCP Server 12 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 10 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 8 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 5 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/lm-studio: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

APIs 4

Individual APIs this provider publishes, each with its own machine-readable definition.

LM Studio Anthropic Compatibility API

Anthropic-compatible messages endpoint.

LM Studio Chat API

Native LM Studio chat inference with generation stats.

LM Studio Models API

List, load, unload, and download local models.

LM Studio OpenAI Compatibility API

OpenAI-compatible endpoints for reuse of existing OpenAI clients.

MCP Servers 1

Model Context Protocol servers that expose these APIs to AI agents.

lm-studio-mcp.yml

MCP SERVER

Security Posture 3

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Lm Studio Authentication

http · 1 scheme

SECURITY

Lm Studio Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DNSSEC · DMARC

SECURITY

Lm Studio Vulnerability Disclosure

disclosure policy published

SECURITY

Resources

Get Started 2

Portal, sign-up, and the first successful call

DeveloperPortal
DeveloperPortal
 GettingStarted
GettingStarted

Documentation 2

Reference material describing how the API behaves

Documentation
Documentation
 APIReference
APIReference

Agent Surfaces 3

MCP servers, agent skills, and machine-readable catalogs

MCPServer
MCPServer
 LLMsTxt
LLMsTxt
 AgentSkill
AgentSkill

Design & Contract 5

Pagination, idempotency, versioning, errors, and events

Conventions
Conventions
 ErrorCatalog
ErrorCatalog
 Lifecycle
Lifecycle
 Conformance
Conformance
 DataModel
DataModel

Build 4

SDKs, sample code, and the tooling you integrate with

GitHubOrganization
GitHubOrganization
 Packages
Packages
 SDKs
SDKs
 CLI
CLI

Access & Security 4

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

Authentication
Authentication
 VulnerabilityDisclosure
VulnerabilityDisclosure
 Security
Security
 DomainSecurity
DomainSecurity

Operate 1

Status, limits, changes, and where to get help

Support
Support

Commercial 2

Pricing, plans, and the legal terms of use

TermsOfService
TermsOfService
 PrivacyPolicy
PrivacyPolicy

Company 2

The organization behind the API

Website
Website
 Blog
Blog

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: lm-studio
name: LM Studio
description: 'LM Studio is a desktop application for discovering, downloading, and running large language models (Llama, DeepSeek,
  Phi, Qwen, gpt-oss, and others) locally on macOS, Windows, and Linux. It runs GGUF and MLX models via llama.cpp and Apple''s
  MLX engine, and ships a local HTTP server that developers can drive from their own apps: a native LM Studio REST API (beta)
  under /api/v1 with generation stats, model load/unload/download and MCP-via-API, an OpenAI-compatible surface under /v1
  (chat/completions, completions, embeddings, models, responses), and an Anthropic-compatible /v1/messages endpoint. It is
  complemented by Python (lmstudio) and TypeScript (@lmstudio/sdk) SDKs, the MIT-licensed lms command-line tool, headless/daemon
  operation, LM Link cross-device routing, and MCP host support. Backed by Matrix Partners.'
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/lm-studio/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
x-type: company
x-source: vc-portfolio
x-backed-by:
- matrix-partners
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: self-serve
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Self-serve signup
  confidence: medium
  source:
  - authentication
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
image: https://files.lmstudio.ai/bionic/lm-studio-bionic-og.jpg
specificationVersion: '0.20'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-20'
tags:
- Company
- Ai
- Local LLM
- Machine Learning
- Inference
- Developer Tools
- LLM
- MCP
- SDK
- Desktop Application
apis:
- aid: lm-studio:lm-studio-anthropic-compatibility-api
  name: LM Studio Anthropic Compatibility API
  description: Anthropic-compatible messages endpoint.
  humanURL: https://lmstudio.ai/docs/app/api/endpoints/rest
  baseURL: http://localhost:1234
  tags:
  - Anthropic Compatibility
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/lm-studio-anthropic-compatibility-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/lm-studio-authentication.yml
  - type: Conventions
    url: conventions/lm-studio-conventions.yml
  - type: ErrorCatalog
    url: errors/lm-studio-problem-types.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/lm-studio-data-model.yml
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/lm-studio-conformance.yml
  - type: Lifecycle
    url: lifecycle/lm-studio-lifecycle.yml
- aid: lm-studio:lm-studio-chat-api
  name: LM Studio Chat API
  description: Native LM Studio chat inference with generation stats.
  humanURL: https://lmstudio.ai/docs/app/api/endpoints/rest
  baseURL: http://localhost:1234
  tags:
  - Chat
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/lm-studio-chat-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/lm-studio-authentication.yml
  - type: Conventions
    url: conventions/lm-studio-conventions.yml
  - type: ErrorCatalog
    url: errors/lm-studio-problem-types.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/lm-studio-data-model.yml
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/lm-studio-conformance.yml
  - type: Lifecycle
    url: lifecycle/lm-studio-lifecycle.yml
- aid: lm-studio:lm-studio-models-api
  name: LM Studio Models API
  description: List, load, unload, and download local models.
  humanURL: https://lmstudio.ai/docs/app/api/endpoints/rest
  baseURL: http://localhost:1234
  tags:
  - Models
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/lm-studio-models-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/lm-studio-authentication.yml
  - type: Conventions
    url: conventions/lm-studio-conventions.yml
  - type: ErrorCatalog
    url: errors/lm-studio-problem-types.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/lm-studio-data-model.yml
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/lm-studio-conformance.yml
  - type: Lifecycle
    url: lifecycle/lm-studio-lifecycle.yml
- aid: lm-studio:lm-studio-openai-compatibility-api
  name: LM Studio OpenAI Compatibility API
  description: OpenAI-compatible endpoints for reuse of existing OpenAI clients.
  humanURL: https://lmstudio.ai/docs/app/api/endpoints/rest
  baseURL: http://localhost:1234
  tags:
  - OpenAI Compatibility
  properties:
  - type: OpenAPI
    url: openapi/lm-studio-openai-compatibility-api-openapi.yml
  - type: Authentication
    url: authentication/lm-studio-authentication.yml
  - type: Conventions
    url: conventions/lm-studio-conventions.yml
  - type: ErrorCatalog
    url: errors/lm-studio-problem-types.yml
  - type: DataModel
    url: data-model/lm-studio-data-model.yml
  - type: Conformance
    url: conformance/lm-studio-conformance.yml
  - type: Lifecycle
    url: lifecycle/lm-studio-lifecycle.yml
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
common:
- type: Website
  url: https://lmstudio.ai
- type: DeveloperPortal
  url: https://lmstudio.ai/docs
- type: Documentation
  url: https://lmstudio.ai/docs
- type: APIReference
  url: https://lmstudio.ai/docs/app/api/endpoints/rest
- type: GettingStarted
  url: https://lmstudio.ai/docs/app
- type: Blog
  url: https://lmstudio.ai/blog
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/lmstudio-ai
- type: Support
  url: https://github.com/lmstudio-ai/lmstudio-bug-tracker
- type: TermsOfService
  url: https://lmstudio.ai/terms
- type: PrivacyPolicy
  url: https://lmstudio.ai/privacy
- type: Packages
  url: packages/lm-studio-packages.yml
- type: SDKs
  url: packages/lm-studio-packages.yml
- type: CLI
  url: cli/lm-studio-cli.yml
- type: MCPServer
  url: mcp/lm-studio-mcp.yml
- type: Authentication
  url: authentication/lm-studio-authentication.yml
- type: Conventions
  url: conventions/lm-studio-conventions.yml
- type: ErrorCatalog
  url: errors/lm-studio-problem-types.yml
- type: Lifecycle
  url: lifecycle/lm-studio-lifecycle.yml
- type: Conformance
  url: conformance/lm-studio-conformance.yml
- type: DataModel
  url: data-model/lm-studio-data-model.yml
- type: LLMsTxt
  url: llms/lm-studio-llms.txt
- type: AgentSkill
  url: skills/_index.yml
- type: VulnerabilityDisclosure
  url: security/lm-studio-vulnerability-disclosure.yml
- type: Security
  url: https://lmstudio.ai/vulnerability-disclosure
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/lm-studio-domain-security.yml
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-07-20'
  status: enriched
  artifacts_added: 18
  pass: local-v1