{
  "version": "2026-04-25",
  "updated": "2026-04-25",
  "notes": "Install pulls only the starter model. Studio reads this file for upgrade recommendations.",
  "starter": {
    "chat": "qwen2.5:0.5b",
    "embedding": "nomic-embed-text",
    "note": "Minimal models for instant setup (<1GB total)"
  },
  "tiers": [
    { "minVram": 24, "chat": "qwen3:32b", "reasoning": "deepseek-r1:32b", "label": "24GB+ VRAM (RTX 4090/5090)" },
    { "minVram": 16, "chat": "qwen3.5:27b", "reasoning": "deepseek-r1:14b", "label": "16-23GB VRAM (RTX 4080/5080)" },
    { "minVram": 8, "chat": "qwen3.5:9b", "reasoning": "deepseek-r1:8b", "label": "8-15GB VRAM (RTX 4060Ti/4070)" },
    { "minVram": 4, "chat": "llama3.2:3b", "label": "4-7GB VRAM (GTX 1650/RTX 3050)" },
    { "minRam": 32, "chat": "qwen3.5:9b", "label": "No GPU, 32GB+ RAM" },
    { "minRam": 16, "chat": "llama3.1:8b", "label": "No GPU, 16-31GB RAM" },
    { "minRam": 8, "chat": "llama3.2:3b", "label": "No GPU, 8-15GB RAM" },
    { "chat": "qwen2.5:0.5b", "label": "Minimal (<8GB RAM)" }
  ],
  "recommended": [
    { "name": "qwen3:32b", "desc": "Best quality", "vram": "24GB+", "size": "~20GB" },
    { "name": "qwen3.5:27b", "desc": "GPT-5 Mini level", "vram": "16GB+", "size": "~17GB" },
    { "name": "gpt-oss:20b", "desc": "Speed champion 140 t/s", "vram": "16GB+", "size": "~14GB" },
    { "name": "deepseek-r1:32b", "desc": "Best reasoning", "vram": "24GB+", "size": "~24GB" },
    { "name": "deepseek-r1:14b", "desc": "Good reasoning", "vram": "10GB+", "size": "~10GB" },
    { "name": "gemma4:26b", "desc": "Multimodal", "vram": "16GB+", "size": "~16GB" },
    { "name": "qwen3.5:9b", "desc": "Best for 8GB VRAM", "vram": "8GB+", "size": "~6.5GB" }
  ]
}