We present a new approach to local independence in spin glasses, i.e. the phenomenon that any fixed subset of coordinates is asymptotically independent in the thermodynamic limit. The approach generalizes the rigorous cavity method from Talagrand by considering multiple cavity sites. Under replica-symmetric conditions of thin-shell and overlap concentration, the cavity fields are revealed to be asymptotically independent, conditionally on the disorder, which in turn leads to local independence. Conversely, it is shown that local independence implies those replica-symmetric properties. The framework is general enough to encompass the classical and soft spin ($[-1,1]$) Sherrington-Kirkpatrick models, as well as the Gardner spin glasses.