Ollama-Buddy 0.13.1: Curl backend support and some optimizations

This is more of a maintenance update. The main headline is the addition of an option to select a curl-based backend for those who may encounter networking issues. By default, ollama-buddy uses built-in low-level networking calls, but if you have network issues, you can now switch to curl!

<2025-06-21 Sat> 0.13.1

Refactored content register processing to be more efficient and added a new Emacs package brainstorming prompt file.

<2025-06-15 Sun> 0.13.0

Added curl communication backend with fallback support

• Added ollama-buddy-curl.el as separate backend implementation
• Implemented backend dispatcher system in ollama-buddy-core.el
• Updated all async functions to use backend dispatcher
• Added curl backend validation and testing functions
• Maintained full compatibility with existing network process backend

When building Emacs packages that communicate with external services, network connectivity can sometimes be a pain point. While Emacs’s built-in make-network-process works great in most cases, some users have encountered issues on certain systems or network configurations. That’s why now I have added a curl-based communication backend to give you an additional option, who knows, maybe it will solve your ollama communication issues!

The original ollama-buddy implementation relied exclusively on Emacs’s native network process functionality. While this works well for most users, I occasionally heard from users who experienced network process failures/flakiness on certain systems.

Rather than trying to work around these edge cases in the network process code, I took a different approach: I added curl as an alternative communication backend! This gives users a battle-tested, widely-available HTTP client as a fallback option.

Users can enable the curl backend with a simple customization:

(use-package ollama-buddy
  :bind
  ("C-c o" . ollama-buddy-menu)
  ("C-c O" . ollama-buddy-transient-menu-wrapper)
  :config
  ;; Load curl backend first
  (require 'ollama-buddy-curl nil t)

  ;; Then set the backend
  (setq ollama-buddy-communication-backend 'curl))

and then switch backends from the chat buffer C-c e

The curl backend supports everything the network backend does:

• Real-time streaming responses
• Vision model support with image attachments
• File attachments and context
• All Ollama API parameters
• Multishot model sequences

If curl is selected but not available, the system automatically falls back to the network process with a helpful warning message.

From a user perspective, the backend choice is largely transparent. The main indicators are:

• Status line shows [C] for curl or [N] for network
• Process list shows ollama-chat-curl vs ollama-chat-stream processes
• Curl backend shows “Curl Processing…” in status messages

Everything else - streaming behaviour, response formatting, error handling - works identically regardless of the backend.

<2025-05-31 Sat> 0.12.1

Optimized Unicode escape function to fix blocking with large file attachments

• Fixed UI blocking when sending large attached files
• Used temp buffer with delete-char/insert instead of repeated concat calls
• Reduced processing time from minutes to milliseconds for large payloads