diff --git a/packages/local-llm/src/engine-impl.ts b/packages/local-llm/src/engine-impl.ts
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..e5066f60a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/local-llm/src/engine-impl.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,270 @@
+/**
+ * LocalLLMEngineImpl — the actual transformers.js engine.
+ *
+ * This file is intentionally NOT exported from the package's index.ts.
+ * It's loaded only inside the Web Worker (worker.ts), where it owns
+ * the model + processor + WebGPU device + tensor work. The main thread
+ * never instantiates it directly — instead it talks to a thin
+ * `LocalLLMEngine` proxy in engine.ts that postMessages over to the
+ * worker.
+ *
+ * Why the split: model.generate() with a 2B-parameter LLM does heavy
+ * synchronous tensor work that blocks the JS thread for 50-200 ms per
+ * forward pass. With ~150 forward passes per generation, the main
+ * thread would freeze for ~10-30 seconds during a single chat reply.
+ * Web Workers run on their own thread, so the main UI stays responsive
+ * for scrolling, clicks, and animations while inference is happening.
+ *
+ * The implementation is otherwise identical to the previous in-thread
+ * engine — same two-step tokenization, same aggregated progress, same
+ * streaming-or-fallback token counting, same convention quirks for
+ * transformers.js v4. See the comment headers in each method for the
+ * detailed reasoning behind each non-obvious decision.
+ */
+
+import type { GenerateOptions, GenerateResult, LoadingStatus, ModelConfig } from './types';
+import { MODELS, DEFAULT_MODEL, type ModelKey } from './models';
+
+type TransformersModule = typeof import('@huggingface/transformers');
+
+// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
+type AnyModel = any;
+// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
+type AnyProcessor = any;
+
+export class LocalLLMEngineImpl {
+	private model: AnyModel = null;
+	private processor: AnyProcessor = null;
+	private transformers: TransformersModule | null = null;
+	private loadPromise: Promise<void> | null = null;
+	private currentModel: ModelKey | null = null;
+	private _status: LoadingStatus = { state: 'idle' };
+	private statusListeners: Set<(status: LoadingStatus) => void> = new Set();
+
+	get status(): LoadingStatus {
+		return this._status;
+	}
+
+	get isReady(): boolean {
+		return this._status.state === 'ready';
+	}
+
+	get modelConfig(): ModelConfig | null {
+		return this.currentModel ? MODELS[this.currentModel] : null;
+	}
+
+	onStatusChange(listener: (status: LoadingStatus) => void): () => void {
+		this.statusListeners.add(listener);
+		return () => this.statusListeners.delete(listener);
+	}
+
+	private setStatus(status: LoadingStatus) {
+		this._status = status;
+		for (const listener of this.statusListeners) {
+			listener(status);
+		}
+	}
+
+	static isSupported(): boolean {
+		return typeof navigator !== 'undefined' && 'gpu' in navigator;
+	}
+
+	async load(model: ModelKey = DEFAULT_MODEL): Promise<void> {
+		if (this.model && this.currentModel === model) return;
+		if (this.loadPromise && this.currentModel === model) return this.loadPromise;
+		if (this.model && this.currentModel !== model) {
+			await this.unload();
+		}
+		this.currentModel = model;
+		this.loadPromise = this._load(model);
+		return this.loadPromise;
+	}
+
+	private async _load(model: ModelKey): Promise<void> {
+		if (!LocalLLMEngineImpl.isSupported()) {
+			this.setStatus({ state: 'error', error: 'WebGPU not supported in this browser' });
+			throw new Error('WebGPU not supported');
+		}
+
+		this.setStatus({ state: 'checking' });
+
+		try {
+			if (!this.transformers) {
+				this.transformers = await import('@huggingface/transformers');
+			}
+			const config = MODELS[model];
+
+			// Aggregated per-file progress reporting — see the long comment
+			// in the previous engine.ts for the rationale.
+			const fileProgress = new Map<string, { loaded: number; total: number }>();
+
+			const formatBytes = (bytes: number): string => {
+				if (bytes < 1024) return `${bytes} B`;
+				if (bytes < 1024 * 1024) return `${(bytes / 1024).toFixed(0)} KB`;
+				if (bytes < 1024 * 1024 * 1024) return `${(bytes / (1024 * 1024)).toFixed(0)} MB`;
+				return `${(bytes / (1024 * 1024 * 1024)).toFixed(2)} GB`;
+			};
+
+			const emitAggregate = () => {
+				let totalLoaded = 0;
+				let totalSize = 0;
+				for (const { loaded, total } of fileProgress.values()) {
+					totalLoaded += loaded;
+					totalSize += total;
+				}
+				const pct = totalSize > 0 ? totalLoaded / totalSize : 0;
+				this.setStatus({
+					state: 'downloading',
+					progress: pct,
+					text:
+						totalSize > 0
+							? `Downloading model (${(pct * 100).toFixed(0)}%, ${formatBytes(totalLoaded)} / ${formatBytes(totalSize)}, ${fileProgress.size} files)`
+							: `Downloading model (${fileProgress.size} files queued)`,
+				});
+			};
+
+			const progressCallback = (report: {
+				status: string;
+				file?: string;
+				name?: string;
+				progress?: number;
+				loaded?: number;
+				total?: number;
+			}) => {
+				const file = report.file ?? report.name ?? '_unknown';
+				if (report.status === 'initiate') {
+					if (!fileProgress.has(file)) fileProgress.set(file, { loaded: 0, total: 0 });
+					emitAggregate();
+				} else if (report.status === 'download' || report.status === 'progress') {
+					fileProgress.set(file, {
+						loaded: report.loaded ?? 0,
+						total: report.total ?? fileProgress.get(file)?.total ?? 0,
+					});
+					emitAggregate();
+				} else if (report.status === 'done') {
+					const existing = fileProgress.get(file);
+					if (existing && existing.total > 0) {
+						fileProgress.set(file, { loaded: existing.total, total: existing.total });
+					}
+					emitAggregate();
+				}
+			};
+
+			const { AutoProcessor, Gemma4ForConditionalGeneration } = this.transformers as unknown as {
+				AutoProcessor: { from_pretrained(id: string, opts?: unknown): Promise<AnyProcessor> };
+				Gemma4ForConditionalGeneration: {
+					from_pretrained(id: string, opts?: unknown): Promise<AnyModel>;
+				};
+			};
+
+			this.processor = await AutoProcessor.from_pretrained(config.modelId, {
+				progress_callback: progressCallback,
+			});
+			this.model = await Gemma4ForConditionalGeneration.from_pretrained(config.modelId, {
+				dtype: config.dtype,
+				device: 'webgpu',
+				progress_callback: progressCallback,
+			});
+
+			this.setStatus({ state: 'ready' });
+		} catch (err) {
+			const message = err instanceof Error ? err.message : String(err);
+			this.setStatus({ state: 'error', error: message });
+			this.loadPromise = null;
+			throw err;
+		}
+	}
+
+	async unload(): Promise<void> {
+		this.model = null;
+		this.processor = null;
+		this.currentModel = null;
+		this.loadPromise = null;
+		this.setStatus({ state: 'idle' });
+	}
+
+	async generate(options: GenerateOptions): Promise<GenerateResult> {
+		if (!this.model || !this.processor) {
+			await this.load();
+		}
+
+		const start = performance.now();
+
+		// Two-step input prep — see previous engine.ts comment for why we
+		// can't use apply_chat_template's all-in-one return_dict mode for
+		// Gemma4ForConditionalGeneration.
+		const promptText: string = this.processor.apply_chat_template(options.messages, {
+			add_generation_prompt: true,
+			tokenize: false,
+		});
+
+		const inputs = this.processor.tokenizer(promptText, {
+			return_tensors: 'pt',
+		});
+
+		const promptTokenCount = this.tensorLength(inputs?.input_ids);
+
+		let collectedText = '';
+		const transformers = this.transformers as TransformersModule;
+		// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
+		const TextStreamer = (transformers as any).TextStreamer;
+		const streamer = new TextStreamer(this.processor.tokenizer, {
+			skip_prompt: true,
+			skip_special_tokens: true,
+			callback_function: (text: string) => {
+				collectedText += text;
+				options.onToken?.(text);
+			},
+		});
+
+		// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
+		let generated: any = null;
+		try {
+			generated = await this.model.generate({
+				...inputs,
+				max_new_tokens: options.maxTokens ?? 1024,
+				temperature: options.temperature ?? 0.7,
+				do_sample: (options.temperature ?? 0.7) > 0,
+				streamer,
+			});
+		} catch (err) {
+			if (!collectedText) throw err;
+		}
+
+		let completionTokenCount = 0;
+		try {
+			if (generated && generated.dims) {
+				const fullSequence = this.tensorRow(generated, 0);
+				completionTokenCount = Math.max(0, fullSequence.length - promptTokenCount);
+			}
+		} catch {
+			// fall through to estimate
+		}
+		if (completionTokenCount === 0 && collectedText) {
+			completionTokenCount = Math.ceil(collectedText.length / 4);
+		}
+
+		return {
+			content: collectedText,
+			usage: {
+				prompt_tokens: promptTokenCount,
+				completion_tokens: completionTokenCount,
+				total_tokens: promptTokenCount + completionTokenCount,
+			},
+			latencyMs: Math.round(performance.now() - start),
+		};
+	}
+
+	// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
+	private tensorLength(tensor: any): number {
+		if (!tensor || !tensor.dims) return 0;
+		return tensor.dims[tensor.dims.length - 1];
+	}
+
+	// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
+	private tensorRow(tensor: any, row: number): number[] {
+		const seqLen = tensor.dims[tensor.dims.length - 1];
+		const start = row * seqLen;
+		return Array.from(tensor.data.slice(start, start + seqLen)) as number[];
+	}
+}
diff --git a/packages/local-llm/src/engine.ts b/packages/local-llm/src/engine.ts
index a11d90aea..0785df377 100644
--- a/packages/local-llm/src/engine.ts
+++ b/packages/local-llm/src/engine.ts
@@ -1,35 +1,57 @@
 /**
- * LocalLLMEngine — transformers.js wrapper for client-side inference.
+ * LocalLLMEngine — main-thread proxy for the worker-hosted engine.
  *
- * Lazy-loads a HuggingFace ONNX model on first use, caches weights in the
- * browser's Cache API, and runs inference on the WebGPU backend.
+ * Public API is intentionally identical to the previous in-thread
+ * implementation so existing callers (the /llm-test page, the
+ * playground module, @mana/shared-llm's BrowserBackend, the Svelte 5
+ * reactive bindings in svelte.svelte.ts) need no changes. Internally
+ * every call now goes through a Web Worker — see worker.ts for the
+ * other side of the protocol.
  *
- * The default model is Google's Gemma 4 E2B (`onnx-community/gemma-4-E2B-it-ONNX`,
- * q4f16). The external API of this class is intentionally identical to the
- * previous WebLLM implementation so callers (Svelte stores, /llm-test page,
- * playground module) need no changes when the underlying engine swaps.
+ * Why a worker: a 2B-parameter LLM does heavy synchronous tensor work
+ * for ~50-200 ms per forward pass. With ~150 forward passes per
+ * generation, the main thread would freeze for ~10-30 seconds during
+ * a single chat reply. Web Workers run on their own thread, so the
+ * main UI stays responsive throughout.
+ *
+ * The proxy is constructed lazily — the Worker is only instantiated
+ * on first method call. This matters for SSR: importing this module
+ * during a server render must NOT touch the Worker constructor (which
+ * doesn't exist in Node), and lazy construction is the cleanest way
+ * to keep import-time side effects to zero.
  */
 
-import type { ChatMessage, GenerateOptions, GenerateResult, LoadingStatus } from './types';
-import type { ModelConfig } from './types';
 import { MODELS, DEFAULT_MODEL, type ModelKey } from './models';
+import type {
+	ChatMessage,
+	GenerateOptions,
+	GenerateResult,
+	LoadingStatus,
+	ModelConfig,
+} from './types';
+import type { SerializableGenerateOptions, WorkerRequest, WorkerResponse } from './worker';
 
-// transformers.js types are minimal here on purpose. The library does not
-// publish first-class TS types for every model class, and we never expose
-// these objects past this file — the public surface (LocalLLMEngine methods)
-// is fully typed via our own GenerateResult / LoadingStatus etc.
-type TransformersModule = typeof import('@huggingface/transformers');
+/** Tracking entry for an in-flight worker request. */
+interface PendingRequest {
+	resolve: (data: unknown) => void;
+	reject: (err: Error) => void;
+	onToken?: (token: string) => void;
+}
 
-// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
-type AnyModel = any;
-// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
-type AnyProcessor = any;
+/**
+ * Distributive Omit — preserves the discriminated union when stripping
+ * a key. Plain `Omit<Union, K>` collapses to an intersection in many
+ * TS versions and loses the type narrowing on `req.type`. This helper
+ * distributes the Omit across each member of the union so postRequest
+ * still type-checks at the call sites.
+ */
+type DistributiveOmit<T, K extends keyof T> = T extends unknown ? Omit<T, K> : never;
+type WorkerRequestPayload = DistributiveOmit<WorkerRequest, 'id'>;
 
 export class LocalLLMEngine {
-	private model: AnyModel = null;
-	private processor: AnyProcessor = null;
-	private transformers: TransformersModule | null = null;
-	private loadPromise: Promise<void> | null = null;
+	private worker: Worker | null = null;
+	private pending = new Map<string, PendingRequest>();
+	private nextId = 0;
 	private currentModel: ModelKey | null = null;
 	private _status: LoadingStatus = { state: 'idle' };
 	private statusListeners: Set<(status: LoadingStatus) => void> = new Set();
@@ -46,9 +68,6 @@ export class LocalLLMEngine {
 		return this.currentModel ? MODELS[this.currentModel] : null;
 	}
 
-	/**
-	 * Subscribe to status changes (for non-Svelte usage).
-	 */
 	onStatusChange(listener: (status: LoadingStatus) => void): () => void {
 		this.statusListeners.add(listener);
 		return () => this.statusListeners.delete(listener);
@@ -61,297 +80,118 @@ export class LocalLLMEngine {
 		}
 	}
 
-	/**
-	 * Check if WebGPU is available in this browser.
-	 */
+	/** Check if WebGPU is available. Synchronous and SSR-safe. */
 	static isSupported(): boolean {
 		return typeof navigator !== 'undefined' && 'gpu' in navigator;
 	}
 
-	/**
-	 * Load a model. Idempotent — returns immediately if already loaded.
-	 * Model weights are cached in the browser Cache API for instant reload.
-	 */
-	async load(model: ModelKey = DEFAULT_MODEL): Promise<void> {
-		// Already loaded with this model
-		if (this.model && this.currentModel === model) return;
+	// ─── Worker management ──────────────────────────────────
 
-		// Already loading
-		if (this.loadPromise && this.currentModel === model) return this.loadPromise;
+	private getWorker(): Worker {
+		if (this.worker) return this.worker;
 
-		// Unload previous model if switching
-		if (this.model && this.currentModel !== model) {
-			await this.unload();
+		if (typeof Worker === 'undefined') {
+			throw new Error('@mana/local-llm requires a browser environment (Worker is not defined)');
 		}
 
-		this.currentModel = model;
-		this.loadPromise = this._load(model);
-		return this.loadPromise;
-	}
+		// `new URL('./worker.ts', import.meta.url)` is Vite's documented
+		// pattern for declaring a Web Worker entry. Vite picks this up at
+		// build time, splits worker.ts (and its transformers.js dep) into
+		// its own chunk, and rewrites the URL to the chunk's hashed path.
+		// Outside Vite (raw esbuild, plain Node, etc.) this would fail —
+		// but the only consumer of this package is the SvelteKit web app
+		// where Vite handles the bundling.
+		this.worker = new Worker(new URL('./worker.ts', import.meta.url), {
+			type: 'module',
+			name: 'mana-local-llm',
+		});
 
-	private async _load(model: ModelKey): Promise<void> {
-		if (!LocalLLMEngine.isSupported()) {
-			this.setStatus({ state: 'error', error: 'WebGPU not supported in this browser' });
-			throw new Error('WebGPU not supported');
-		}
-
-		this.setStatus({ state: 'checking' });
-
-		try {
-			if (!this.transformers) {
-				this.transformers = await import('@huggingface/transformers');
+		this.worker.addEventListener('message', this.handleWorkerMessage);
+		this.worker.addEventListener('error', (e) => {
+			// Worker-level fatal error — reject all pending requests.
+			const message = e.message || 'Worker crashed';
+			for (const [id, p] of this.pending) {
+				p.reject(new Error(`Worker error: ${message}`));
+				this.pending.delete(id);
 			}
-			const config = MODELS[model];
-
-			// transformers.js progress callback shape:
-			//   { status: 'initiate'|'download'|'progress'|'done'|'ready',
-			//     name?: string, file?: string, progress?: number,
-			//     loaded?: number, total?: number }
-			//
-			// The callback fires per-file, and the library downloads many
-			// shards in parallel (config.json, tokenizer.json, several
-			// onnx weight files, …). If we naively report the latest event
-			// the bar bounces wildly between files. Instead we keep a
-			// per-file byte-accounting map and emit an aggregated total
-			// every time anything moves. The denominator can grow as new
-			// files are discovered (causing brief dips), but both
-			// numerator and denominator are individually monotonic, so the
-			// dips are small and brief — much smoother than per-file.
-			const fileProgress = new Map<string, { loaded: number; total: number }>();
-
-			const formatBytes = (bytes: number): string => {
-				if (bytes < 1024) return `${bytes} B`;
-				if (bytes < 1024 * 1024) return `${(bytes / 1024).toFixed(0)} KB`;
-				if (bytes < 1024 * 1024 * 1024) return `${(bytes / (1024 * 1024)).toFixed(0)} MB`;
-				return `${(bytes / (1024 * 1024 * 1024)).toFixed(2)} GB`;
-			};
-
-			const emitAggregate = () => {
-				let totalLoaded = 0;
-				let totalSize = 0;
-				for (const { loaded, total } of fileProgress.values()) {
-					totalLoaded += loaded;
-					totalSize += total;
-				}
-				const pct = totalSize > 0 ? totalLoaded / totalSize : 0;
-				this.setStatus({
-					state: 'downloading',
-					progress: pct,
-					text:
-						totalSize > 0
-							? `Downloading model (${(pct * 100).toFixed(0)}%, ${formatBytes(totalLoaded)} / ${formatBytes(totalSize)}, ${fileProgress.size} files)`
-							: `Downloading model (${fileProgress.size} files queued)`,
-				});
-			};
-
-			const progressCallback = (report: {
-				status: string;
-				file?: string;
-				name?: string;
-				progress?: number;
-				loaded?: number;
-				total?: number;
-			}) => {
-				const file = report.file ?? report.name ?? '_unknown';
-				if (report.status === 'initiate') {
-					if (!fileProgress.has(file)) fileProgress.set(file, { loaded: 0, total: 0 });
-					emitAggregate();
-				} else if (report.status === 'download' || report.status === 'progress') {
-					fileProgress.set(file, {
-						loaded: report.loaded ?? 0,
-						total: report.total ?? fileProgress.get(file)?.total ?? 0,
-					});
-					emitAggregate();
-				} else if (report.status === 'done') {
-					// Pin the file to 100% so a final emit shows it complete
-					const existing = fileProgress.get(file);
-					if (existing && existing.total > 0) {
-						fileProgress.set(file, { loaded: existing.total, total: existing.total });
-					}
-					emitAggregate();
-				}
-				// 'ready' is handled below after both processor + model finish
-			};
-
-			// AutoProcessor wraps tokenizer + image/audio preprocessors. For
-			// our text-only chat path we use the wrapped tokenizer's
-			// apply_chat_template, but loading the full processor is the
-			// path the model card documents and avoids architecture-specific
-			// special-casing.
-			const { AutoProcessor, Gemma4ForConditionalGeneration } = this.transformers as unknown as {
-				AutoProcessor: { from_pretrained(id: string, opts?: unknown): Promise<AnyProcessor> };
-				Gemma4ForConditionalGeneration: {
-					from_pretrained(id: string, opts?: unknown): Promise<AnyModel>;
-				};
-			};
-
-			this.processor = await AutoProcessor.from_pretrained(config.modelId, {
-				progress_callback: progressCallback,
-			});
-			this.model = await Gemma4ForConditionalGeneration.from_pretrained(config.modelId, {
-				dtype: config.dtype,
-				device: 'webgpu',
-				progress_callback: progressCallback,
-			});
-
-			this.setStatus({ state: 'ready' });
-		} catch (err) {
-			const message = err instanceof Error ? err.message : String(err);
 			this.setStatus({ state: 'error', error: message });
-			this.loadPromise = null;
-			throw err;
-		}
+		});
+
+		return this.worker;
 	}
 
-	/**
-	 * Unload the model and free GPU memory.
-	 */
-	async unload(): Promise<void> {
-		// transformers.js doesn't expose an explicit dispose() yet — dropping
-		// the references and letting the runtime/GC clean up is the
-		// recommended path. The WebGPU buffers are tied to the model object
-		// and get released when it's no longer reachable.
-		this.model = null;
-		this.processor = null;
-		this.currentModel = null;
-		this.loadPromise = null;
-		this.setStatus({ state: 'idle' });
-	}
+	private handleWorkerMessage = (event: MessageEvent<WorkerResponse>) => {
+		const msg = event.data;
 
-	/**
-	 * Generate a response. Auto-loads the model if not yet loaded.
-	 *
-	 * Implementation notes for the transformers.js v4 backend:
-	 *
-	 * - We always attach a TextStreamer (regardless of whether the caller
-	 *   passed an `onToken`), because the streamer is the *only* documented
-	 *   stable way to read generated text out of model.generate(). The
-	 *   tensor return value of generate() varies between transformers.js
-	 *   versions and is sometimes null when a streamer is in play, which
-	 *   used to crash this method with "Cannot read properties of null
-	 *   (reading 'dims')" the moment a chat message was sent.
-	 *
-	 * - Token counts are computed from the tensor return value when
-	 *   available, and fall back to a chars/4 estimate when it isn't —
-	 *   so /llm-test still shows roughly meaningful prompt/completion
-	 *   counts even on versions where generate() returns nothing.
-	 */
-	async generate(options: GenerateOptions): Promise<GenerateResult> {
-		if (!this.model || !this.processor) {
-			await this.load();
+		// Status broadcasts have no id and target every listener.
+		if (msg.type === 'status') {
+			this.setStatus(msg.status);
+			return;
 		}
 
-		const start = performance.now();
+		// Streaming token: route to the matching request's onToken
+		// callback if one was registered.
+		if (msg.type === 'token') {
+			const pending = this.pending.get(msg.id);
+			pending?.onToken?.(msg.token);
+			return;
+		}
 
-		// Two-step input prep, matching the Gemma 4 model-card example:
-		//   1. Apply the chat template with tokenize:false to get the
-		//      formatted prompt as a plain string (no tokens, no tensor).
-		//   2. Run the string through the processor's tokenizer with
-		//      return_tensors:'pt' to get a proper { input_ids, attention_mask }
-		//      pair backed by transformers.js Tensor objects.
-		//
-		// We previously asked apply_chat_template to do everything in one
-		// shot via `return_dict: true`, but for Gemma4ForConditionalGeneration
-		// that path returned a malformed shape (no .dims on input_ids), and
-		// model.generate() then crashed deep inside the forward pass with
-		// "Cannot read properties of null (reading 'dims')" — surfacing as
-		// an opaque chat error. The two-step path is what every transformers.js
-		// example for multimodal-capable processors uses.
-		const promptText: string = this.processor.apply_chat_template(options.messages, {
-			add_generation_prompt: true,
-			tokenize: false,
-		});
+		// Result/error: resolve or reject the matching pending Promise.
+		const pending = this.pending.get(msg.id);
+		if (!pending) return;
+		this.pending.delete(msg.id);
 
-		const inputs = this.processor.tokenizer(promptText, {
-			return_tensors: 'pt',
-		});
+		if (msg.type === 'result') {
+			pending.resolve(msg.data);
+		} else {
+			pending.reject(new Error(msg.message));
+		}
+	};
 
-		const promptTokenCount = this.tensorLength(inputs?.input_ids);
+	private postRequest<T>(req: WorkerRequestPayload, onToken?: (token: string) => void): Promise<T> {
+		const id = `${++this.nextId}`;
+		const worker = this.getWorker();
 
-		// Always attach a streamer — it's our reliable text channel.
-		let collectedText = '';
-		const transformers = this.transformers as TransformersModule;
-		// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
-		const TextStreamer = (transformers as any).TextStreamer;
-		const streamer = new TextStreamer(this.processor.tokenizer, {
-			skip_prompt: true,
-			skip_special_tokens: true,
-			callback_function: (text: string) => {
-				collectedText += text;
-				options.onToken?.(text);
-			},
-		});
-
-		// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
-		let generated: any = null;
-		try {
-			generated = await this.model.generate({
-				...inputs,
-				max_new_tokens: options.maxTokens ?? 1024,
-				temperature: options.temperature ?? 0.7,
-				do_sample: (options.temperature ?? 0.7) > 0,
-				streamer,
+		return new Promise<T>((resolve, reject) => {
+			this.pending.set(id, {
+				resolve: (data) => resolve(data as T),
+				reject,
+				onToken,
 			});
-		} catch (err) {
-			// Some transformers.js versions throw at the end of streaming
-			// even though the streamer successfully delivered all tokens.
-			// Only re-throw if we genuinely have nothing to return.
-			if (!collectedText) throw err;
-		}
-
-		// Token counts: prefer the tensor return value, fall back to a
-		// rough estimate from the collected text length so the UI still
-		// shows non-zero numbers even on versions where generate() returns
-		// null when a streamer is attached.
-		let completionTokenCount = 0;
-		try {
-			if (generated && generated.dims) {
-				const fullSequence = this.tensorRow(generated, 0);
-				completionTokenCount = Math.max(0, fullSequence.length - promptTokenCount);
-			}
-		} catch {
-			// fall through to estimate
-		}
-		if (completionTokenCount === 0 && collectedText) {
-			// Gemma's BPE averages ~4 chars per token in English/German,
-			// good enough for a UI hint, not for billing.
-			completionTokenCount = Math.ceil(collectedText.length / 4);
-		}
-
-		return {
-			content: collectedText,
-			usage: {
-				prompt_tokens: promptTokenCount,
-				completion_tokens: completionTokenCount,
-				total_tokens: promptTokenCount + completionTokenCount,
-			},
-			latencyMs: Math.round(performance.now() - start),
-		};
+			worker.postMessage({ ...req, id } as WorkerRequest);
+		});
 	}
 
-	/**
-	 * Helper: extract the seq-length of a transformers.js Tensor.
-	 * The tensors expose `.dims` ([batch, seq_len]) and `.data` (TypedArray).
-	 */
-	// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
-	private tensorLength(tensor: any): number {
-		if (!tensor || !tensor.dims) return 0;
-		return tensor.dims[tensor.dims.length - 1];
+	// ─── Public API ──────────────────────────────────────────
+
+	async load(model: ModelKey = DEFAULT_MODEL): Promise<void> {
+		if (this.currentModel === model && this.isReady) return;
+		this.currentModel = model;
+		await this.postRequest<void>({ type: 'load', modelKey: model });
 	}
 
-	/**
-	 * Helper: extract row N of a 2D tensor as a number array.
-	 */
-	// eslint-disable-next-line @typescript-eslint/no-explicit-any
-	private tensorRow(tensor: any, row: number): number[] {
-		const seqLen = tensor.dims[tensor.dims.length - 1];
-		const start = row * seqLen;
-		return Array.from(tensor.data.slice(start, start + seqLen)) as number[];
+	async unload(): Promise<void> {
+		if (!this.worker) return; // never loaded, nothing to do
+		await this.postRequest<void>({ type: 'unload' });
+		this.currentModel = null;
+		// Tear down the worker so a future load() starts a fresh one
+		// with cleared GPU buffers. transformers.js doesn't expose an
+		// explicit dispose, so terminating the worker is the only way
+		// to reliably reclaim VRAM.
+		this.worker.terminate();
+		this.worker = null;
+		this.pending.clear();
 	}
 
-	/**
-	 * Convenience: single prompt → response.
-	 */
+	async generate(options: GenerateOptions): Promise<GenerateResult> {
+		const { onToken, ...rest } = options;
+		const opts: SerializableGenerateOptions = rest;
+		return this.postRequest<GenerateResult>({ type: 'generate', opts }, onToken);
+	}
+
+	// ─── Convenience wrappers (main thread, build on top of generate) ──
+
 	async prompt(
 		text: string,
 		opts?: { systemPrompt?: string; temperature?: number; maxTokens?: number }
@@ -370,9 +210,6 @@ export class LocalLLMEngine {
 		return result.content;
 	}
 
-	/**
-	 * Convenience: extract structured JSON from text.
-	 */
 	async extractJson<T = unknown>(
 		text: string,
 		instruction: string,
@@ -397,9 +234,6 @@ export class LocalLLMEngine {
 		return JSON.parse(result.content) as T;
 	}
 
-	/**
-	 * Convenience: classify text into categories.
-	 */
 	async classify(text: string, categories: string[], opts?: { context?: string }): Promise<string> {
 		const categoryList = categories.map((c) => `"${c}"`).join(', ');
 		const result = await this.generate({
@@ -415,7 +249,6 @@ export class LocalLLMEngine {
 		});
 
 		const normalized = result.content.trim().replace(/^["']|["']$/g, '');
-		// Return the closest matching category
 		const match = categories.find((c) => c.toLowerCase() === normalized.toLowerCase());
 		return match ?? normalized;
 	}
diff --git a/packages/local-llm/src/worker.ts b/packages/local-llm/src/worker.ts
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..ef3aa0db3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/packages/local-llm/src/worker.ts
@@ -0,0 +1,110 @@
+/**
+ * Web Worker entry point for @mana/local-llm.
+ *
+ * Runs in a Dedicated Worker context, owns a single LocalLLMEngineImpl
+ * instance, and exchanges messages with the main thread proxy
+ * (engine.ts) over postMessage. The protocol is small and typed:
+ *
+ * Main → Worker (WorkerRequest):
+ *   { id, type: 'load',     modelKey: ModelKey }
+ *   { id, type: 'unload' }
+ *   { id, type: 'generate', opts: SerializableGenerateOptions }
+ *   { id, type: 'isReady' }   — synchronous probe; resolves with bool
+ *
+ * Worker → Main (WorkerResponse):
+ *   { id, type: 'result',    data?: unknown }   — request fulfilled
+ *   { id, type: 'error',     message: string }  — request rejected
+ *   { id, type: 'token',     token: string }    — streaming token chunk
+ *   {     type: 'status',    status: LoadingStatus }  — broadcast, no id
+ *
+ * Each request has a unique id chosen by the proxy. The worker echoes
+ * the id on its result/error/token responses so the proxy can route
+ * them back to the right pending Promise + onToken callback. Status
+ * messages are broadcast (no id) and trigger every registered status
+ * listener on the proxy.
+ *
+ * Note: this file does NOT import @mana/local-llm's index — it imports
+ * engine-impl directly. The package's public surface is the proxy in
+ * engine.ts; this file is the worker side of that proxy and lives in
+ * its own bundle chunk.
+ */
+
+import { LocalLLMEngineImpl } from './engine-impl';
+import type { GenerateOptions, LoadingStatus } from './types';
+import type { ModelKey } from './models';
+
+// ─── Protocol types (mirrored in engine.ts) ────────────────────
+
+export type SerializableGenerateOptions = Omit<GenerateOptions, 'onToken'>;
+
+export type WorkerRequest =
+	| { id: string; type: 'load'; modelKey: ModelKey }
+	| { id: string; type: 'unload' }
+	| { id: string; type: 'generate'; opts: SerializableGenerateOptions }
+	| { id: string; type: 'isReady' };
+
+export type WorkerResponse =
+	| { id: string; type: 'result'; data?: unknown }
+	| { id: string; type: 'error'; message: string }
+	| { id: string; type: 'token'; token: string }
+	| { type: 'status'; status: LoadingStatus };
+
+// ─── Worker setup ──────────────────────────────────────────────
+
+const engine = new LocalLLMEngineImpl();
+
+// Forward all status changes to the main thread as broadcast messages.
+engine.onStatusChange((status) => {
+	postMessage({ type: 'status', status } satisfies WorkerResponse);
+});
+
+self.addEventListener('message', async (event: MessageEvent<WorkerRequest>) => {
+	const req = event.data;
+
+	try {
+		switch (req.type) {
+			case 'load': {
+				await engine.load(req.modelKey);
+				postMessage({ id: req.id, type: 'result' } satisfies WorkerResponse);
+				break;
+			}
+
+			case 'unload': {
+				await engine.unload();
+				postMessage({ id: req.id, type: 'result' } satisfies WorkerResponse);
+				break;
+			}
+
+			case 'isReady': {
+				postMessage({
+					id: req.id,
+					type: 'result',
+					data: engine.isReady,
+				} satisfies WorkerResponse);
+				break;
+			}
+
+			case 'generate': {
+				// Re-attach the streaming callback on the worker side. Each
+				// emitted token gets posted back to the main thread tagged
+				// with the originating request id, so the proxy can route
+				// it to the right onToken callback.
+				const result = await engine.generate({
+					...req.opts,
+					onToken: (token) => {
+						postMessage({ id: req.id, type: 'token', token } satisfies WorkerResponse);
+					},
+				});
+				postMessage({
+					id: req.id,
+					type: 'result',
+					data: result,
+				} satisfies WorkerResponse);
+				break;
+			}
+		}
+	} catch (err) {
+		const message = err instanceof Error ? err.message : String(err);
+		postMessage({ id: req.id, type: 'error', message } satisfies WorkerResponse);
+	}
+});