How to Use DenchClaw Without Internet

DenchClaw works fully offline—your CRM data lives in local DuckDB. Learn how offline mode works, what requires connectivity, and how to work on planes and in remote locations.

Mark Rachapoom

March 26, 2026·6 min read

DenchClaw is local-first. That phrase has real meaning: the primary copy of your data lives on your machine, not in a cloud database. When you lose your internet connection—on a plane, in a remote location, in a hotel with bad WiFi—DenchClaw keeps working. Your contacts, deals, notes, and pipeline are all accessible because they're right there on your filesystem.

Here's exactly what works offline, what requires connectivity, and how to set up DenchClaw to work well in constrained environments.

What Works Fully Offline#

The core CRM features work with zero internet connection:

Reading and querying your data. Every query against DuckDB is local. View your contacts, pull up deal records, run SQL analytics, search for a contact by name—all of this is 100% offline. The database is a file on your disk.

Creating and editing entries. Adding a new contact, updating a deal stage, writing notes to an entry document—these are all local writes to your DuckDB file. No network needed.

Working with saved views. Your kanban boards, filtered views, and saved queries all load from local configuration files. They don't require a server.

Building and using apps. Dench Apps are HTML/CSS/JS served from your local filesystem. If the app queries DuckDB (most do), it works offline. The bridge API (window.dench.db.query(...)) is served from the local DenchClaw gateway process.

Viewing entry documents. All your notes and documents are markdown files on your filesystem. Open and edit them offline.

Using the web chat frontend. The frontend at localhost:3100 is served locally by the gateway process. You can navigate the UI, view data, and interact with the CRM UI without internet.

What Requires Internet#

Some features inherently need connectivity:

AI model calls. The AI agent (the conversational part of DenchClaw) calls an LLM API—Claude, GPT, Gemini, or whatever model you've configured. These calls go over the internet. If you're offline, you can still use the CRM UI manually, but natural language commands won't work.

Exception: If you've configured DenchClaw with a local model (via Ollama or LM Studio), AI works offline too. Ask: "Configure DenchClaw to use my local Ollama model as a fallback when internet is unavailable."

Browser automation. The browser agent needs to access websites, which requires internet.

Email sending. SMTP/API calls for sending email require connectivity.

Webhook reception. If you're receiving leads via webhooks, the incoming connection requires your gateway to be accessible—usually requires internet.

Dench Cloud sync. If you're using Dench Cloud for sync or backup, that sync pauses when offline and resumes automatically when connectivity returns.

Setting Up a Local AI Model for Full Offline Mode#

If you want completely offline AI capabilities, install Ollama:

# Install Ollama
brew install ollama
 
# Pull a capable model (llama3.2 works well for CRM tasks)
ollama pull llama3.2
 
# Verify it's running
ollama list

Then tell DenchClaw to use it:

"Configure my AI to use the local Ollama llama3.2 model when 
the internet is unavailable, falling back to Claude when online."

With a local model, every feature of DenchClaw works offline—including natural language queries and AI-assisted entry creation.

Performance note: Local models are smaller than frontier models. For CRM queries and data entry, they work well. For complex writing tasks or research, online models are noticeably better.

Preparing for Offline Work#

Before a flight, trip, or period of expected poor connectivity:

1. Make sure your data is synced. If you're using Dench Cloud, ensure the latest data has synced to your local machine. Ask: "Show me when my DenchClaw data was last synced."

2. Pre-run your views. Open your key views and dashboards while online so they're cached and rendered. Navigate to the kanban boards you'll use on the plane.

3. Pull any local model if needed. If you want offline AI, ensure your Ollama model is downloaded: ollama pull llama3.2

4. Check the workspace directory. Make sure ~/.openclaw-dench/workspace/ is on your local disk, not a network drive or synced folder that's only available online.

Working on a Plane: A Typical Session#

Here's what a productive offline CRM session looks like:

Open DenchClaw at localhost:3100
Navigate to your deals kanban — loads instantly from DuckDB
Work through deals that need notes or status updates — all local writes
Write entry documents for upcoming calls — markdown files, local
Review and update contacts — all local
Build a quick analytics query — DuckDB, local
Draft follow-up emails in entry documents to send when you land

What you can't do: send those emails, enrich contacts from LinkedIn, or run complex AI tasks with frontier models. But everything involving your own data is fully available.

Offline Editing with the VS Code Bridge#

DenchClaw's workspace is a regular directory on your filesystem. Entry documents are markdown files. You can open them in VS Code, Obsidian, or any text editor and edit them offline—changes are picked up by DenchClaw when you return to the app.

This is particularly useful if you prefer writing in a dedicated editor rather than the DenchClaw web UI.

Handling Sync Conflicts#

If you edit data both locally and in Dench Cloud while offline, you may get a sync conflict when reconnecting. DenchClaw handles this with a last-write-wins strategy for most fields, and shows you conflicts for entry documents so you can merge manually.

To avoid conflicts: before going offline, note any records that someone else might be editing in a shared workspace.