Local topos

A topos over sets is local when its global sections functor is itself an inverse image functor. For an idempotent-complete small indexing category, its presheaf topos is local exactly when the indexing category has a terminal object: then global sections are evaluation at that object.

Equivalently every open cover of $X$ contains $X$ as a member, so the top element of its open-set lattice is supercompact in the frame sense. Necessity follows from preservation of coproducts and epimorphisms by global sections. Conversely the union of all proper opens misses a point $x$, and the stalk functor there equals global sections. Its right adjoint is a skyscraper sheaf of sets. Empty spaces fail; a T1 space satisfies the condition exactly when it is a singleton.

The constant singleton functor must be a retract in a category of a covariant representable functor. Necessity follows by applying a colimit-preserving global-sections functor to the canonical coproduct of representables onto the terminal functor. Conversely its Hom functor is a retract of evaluation, preserves colimits and has a right adjoint. Such a retract is represented by an initial object in the idempotent completion. For an idempotent-complete category an actual initial object suffices; without this hypothesis an absorbing-zero monoid gives a counterexample to the unqualified claim.