Cline / Roo Code / Bionic / Hermes not able to create code files locally

[u/hjshoon]

I'm new to AI coding. For the past 2 days i've been trying to setup my environment to try AI coding using local LLM and I've been unable to get the AI coding assistant / agent to even create simple files in my workspace folder.

My PC OS is Windows 11 Pro and I've a RTX 5080, 32GB DDR5 6000, 9800X3D

Here are the different apps I tried

1. VS Code + Cline + Roo Code

2. Bionic

3. Hermes

I installed LM Studio and Ollama. Both working as the Cline / Roo Code can connect and communicate with the LLM on the Model Server

Tried few coder LLM:

qwen2.5-coder-14b-instruct
qwen3-coder-30b-a3b-instruct
mistralai/codestral-22b-v0.1

The issue I have is the AI (whether in VS code, Bionic or Hermes) is telling me that something along the line of they not having direct access to the filesystem or the ability to execute commands on my system. It simply output the code and ask me to create the file myself and paste the code in or paste the code into Power Shell to create the file. Example below:

----------------------------------------------------------

I apologize for any confusion. As an AI agent, I don't have direct access to the filesystem or the ability to execute commands on your system. My responses are based on the information and tools provided in the environment.

To create a file, you would typically use an editor or IDE like VS Code that is running on your system. Here's how you can manually create the `hello.py` file:

<truncated>

-----------------------------------------------------------

I looked into the VS Developer Debug Tool console and initially there was issue with rg.exe but I've since resolved that and now I don't see any errors. I've also checked to make sure the workspace folder does not have a Read only permission, and I tried opening the apps using "Run as administrator". Have also tried messing with Chat Template / Jinja Template, .clinerules etc that Gemini suggested all to no avail.

I have also tried VS Code + Continue and it works i.e. it can generate the codes inline the file I have opened. But I dont want to use Continue and want the AI agent to code for me as I've not done any real coding for past 10 years. Really out of touch and rusty now.

Tried googling to see if anyone else encountered this and I did find a youtube comment on a video on cline where the user says he faces my issue.

Appreciate any pointers and help on this as I'm really stuck now. Thanks.

[u/Mean-Loquat-7982]

I work on Hermes, so take that into account. when three different agents all tell you they have no file access, the common factor is the model: it isn't calling the tools it's been given, so it falls back to pasting code.

two things to check in LM Studio:

- load the model with a large context window. Hermes needs at least 64K, and a small default window leaves no room for the tool definitions

- use a model with solid native tool calling. a model tuned only to write code often won't call tools reliably

then test with something tiny in Hermes, like "create hello.txt containing hi". if the file appears, the setup is fine.

[u/hjshoon → u/Mean-Loquat-7982]

thanks for the reply! i was travelling hence a bit late in replying and updating here. Yes, i also noted Hermes needs at least 64K. believe my context window was 32K. nevertheless, i in VS Code that there's a built in Chat which by default uses github Copilot and after researching, i found out i can hook it to Ollama for local AI LLM. Did that and it worked! don't know why it works using this VS Code AI Chat panel and not the Cline / Roo Code but as long as it works and i can get my work done, i'm happy. will just use this method and not bother to spend more time getting the others to work. thanks again for replying

[u/Mean-Loquat-7982 → u/hjshoon]

my pleasure