OpenRouter Free Model Selector

Find and test free models on OpenRouter to minimize costs while maintaining quality.

What This Skill Does

• •List Free Models: Fetch all models with $0 pricing from OpenRouter
• •Test Models: Verify a model responds correctly before use
• •Auto-Select: Find the best available free model for coding tasks
• •Fallback: Gracefully fall back to cheap paid models if needed

Prerequisites

Set the OpenRouter API key:

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY="sk-or-v1-..."

Or the skill uses the default free-tier key.

Usage

List All Free Models

python3 scripts/openrouter_free_model_selector.py --list

Test a Specific Model

python3 scripts/openrouter_free_model_selector.py --test "qwen/qwen3-coder:free"

Auto-Select Best Model (Verbose)

python3 scripts/openrouter_free_model_selector.py -v

Get Model ID Only (for scripting)

MODEL=$(python3 scripts/openrouter_free_model_selector.py)
echo "Using: $MODEL"

JSON Output

python3 scripts/openrouter_free_model_selector.py --list --json
python3 scripts/openrouter_free_model_selector.py --json

Preferred Free Models (Priority Order)

1. •deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528:free - DeepSeek R1 (best reasoning)
2. •qwen/qwen3-coder:free - Qwen Coder (optimized for code)
3. •meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct:free - Llama 3.3 70B
4. •mistralai/mistral-small-3.1-24b-instruct:free - Mistral Small
5. •google/gemma-3-27b-it:free - Gemma 3 27B

Integration with Gas Town

To use with polecats:

# Select best free model
MODEL=$(python3 scripts/openrouter_free_model_selector.py)

# Configure for agent use
export OPENROUTER_MODEL="$MODEL"

Fallback Behavior

If no free models work, falls back to:

1. •anthropic/claude-3-haiku (cheap)
2. •openai/gpt-4o-mini (cheap)
3. •google/gemini-flash-1.5 (cheap)