Engineer Builds Production App Using Only Local LLM, No Cloud AI

A developer created SafeDevTools, a suite of privacy-first browser utilities, using only a local LLM (Gemma 4:12B) on a MacBook M4 Pro, with no cloud AI or API credits. The project demonstrates how local models can handle repetitive coding tasks like boilerplate and validation while the engineer focuses on architecture. The author argues that AI's real value is in replacing grunt work, not engineers.