| name | openrouter-models |
| description | Find and test free OpenRouter models. Lists available free models, tests their availability, and selects the best working model for code generation tasks. Use this before spawning agents to select cost-effective models. |
| author | gastown |
| version | 1.0.0 |
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: $MODEL"
JSON Output
python3 scripts/openrouter_free_model_selector.py --list --json
python3 scripts/openrouter_free_model_selector.py --json
Preferred Free Models (Priority Order)
deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528:free - DeepSeek R1 (best reasoning)qwen/qwen3-coder:free - Qwen Coder (optimized for code)meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct:free - Llama 3.3 70Bmistralai/mistral-small-3.1-24b-instruct:free - Mistral Smallgoogle/gemma-3-27b-it:free - Gemma 3 27B
Integration with Gas Town
To use with polecats:
MODEL=$(python3 scripts/openrouter_free_model_selector.py)
export OPENROUTER_MODEL="$MODEL"
Fallback Behavior
If no free models work, falls back to:
anthropic/claude-3-haiku (cheap)openai/gpt-4o-mini (cheap)google/gemini-flash-1.5 (cheap)
