ElBruno.OllamaMonitor

ElBruno.OllamaMonitor

A tiny Windows system tray tool to monitor your local Ollama runtime.

Quick visual feedback about your Ollama status, resource usage, and models—right from your Windows system tray.

What It Does

ElBruno.OllamaMonitor sits in your Windows system tray and tells you:

• Is Ollama running? A glance at the tray icon shows you the status.
• Is a model loaded? See what's currently active.
• How much CPU, RAM, and GPU is it using? Real-time resource metrics from the Ollama process.
• Any errors? Get instant visual feedback if something's wrong.

Perfect for:

• Local AI developers who need quick visibility into Ollama
• Demo presenters who want to know resource impact in real-time
• Anyone running large models locally who's curious about the overhead

Demo

Installation

Via NuGet (Recommended)

dotnet tool install --global ElBruno.OllamaMonitor

Then launch anytime:

ollamamon

From Source

git clone https://github.com/elbruno/ElBruno.OllamaMonitor.git
cd ElBruno.OllamaMonitor
dotnet build src/ElBruno.OllamaMonitor/
dotnet run --project src/ElBruno.OllamaMonitor/

Quick Start

Launch the App

ollamamon

The app starts minimized to the tray by default. Use the tray icon to open either the full details window or the always-on-top mini monitor.

View Current Configuration

ollamamon config

Change the Ollama Endpoint

If you're running Ollama on a different machine or port:

ollamamon config set endpoint http://192.168.1.100:11434

Adjust Refresh Interval

Control how often the app polls Ollama (in seconds, default is 2):

ollamamon config set refresh-interval 5

Reset to Defaults

ollamamon config reset

Get Help

ollamamon --help

System Tray Status

The tray icon color tells you the status at a glance:

Color	Meaning
🟤 Gray	Ollama is not reachable
🟢 Green	Ollama is running, no model loaded
🔵 Blue	A model is currently loaded
🟠 Orange	A model is running or high resource usage
🔴 Red	Error or Ollama unavailable

Click the icon to open the full details window for diagnostics, or open the mini monitor from the tray menu to keep resource usage visible on top of other windows.

Features

• ✅ System Tray Integration — Runs in the background, always visible
• ✅ Visual Status Indicators — Color-coded icons for quick status checks
• ✅ Standard Details Window — A normal Windows window with minimize/close behavior that keeps the app in the tray when closed
• ✅ Mini Monitor Window — A semi-transparent always-on-top compact view for CPU, RAM, GPU, and model status
• ✅ Local Configuration — Customize endpoint, refresh rate, thresholds
• ✅ CLI Commands — Fully scriptable configuration
• ✅ GPU Metrics — Best-effort NVIDIA GPU tracking (if nvidia-smi is available)
• ✅ Copy to Clipboard — Quickly share diagnostics
• ✅ Manual Refresh — Force an immediate check
• ✅ Open Ollama URL — Quick link to the Ollama API

Requirements

• Windows 10 / Windows 11 (requires .NET 10 runtime, which can be downloaded from dotnet.microsoft.com)
• Ollama running locally (download from ollama.ai)
• .NET 10 SDK to build from source

Optional:

• nvidia-smi (NVIDIA GPU drivers) for GPU metrics

Configuration

Configuration is stored at:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\ElBruno\OllamaMonitor\settings.json

Default values:

{
  "endpoint": "http://localhost:11434",
  "refreshIntervalSeconds": 2,
  "startMinimizedToTray": true,
  "showFloatingWindowOnStart": false,
  "enableGpuMetrics": true,
  "enableDiskMetrics": true,
  "highCpuThresholdPercent": 80,
  "highMemoryThresholdGb": 16,
  "highGpuThresholdPercent": 85
}

You can edit this file directly or use the CLI commands.

Documentation

• Architecture Guide — How the app is built and organized
• Configuration Guide — Detailed configuration options and defaults
• Development Guide — Building from source, folder structure, debugging
• Publishing Guide — NuGet publishing with GitHub Releases and OIDC
• Troubleshooting — Common issues and solutions
• Release Notes — Version history and changelog

Promotional Content

• Blog Post — Full-length article about the tool
• LinkedIn Post — Social media ready
• Twitter Post — X-ready snippet
• Image Prompts — AI image generation prompts for graphics

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see LICENSE for details.

Support

Found a bug or have a feature request? Open an issue on GitHub.

Questions about Ollama? Check the Ollama documentation.

About the Author

Made with ❤️ by Bruno Capuano (ElBruno)

• 📝 Blog: elbruno.com
• 📺 YouTube: youtube.com/elbruno
• 🔗 LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/elbruno
• 𝕏 Twitter: twitter.com/elbruno
• 🎙️ Podcast: notienenombre.com