pi-free-providers

Free and paid AI model providers for Pi. Access free and paid models from multiple providers in one install.

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What does pi-free do

pi-free is a Pi extension that unlocks free and paid AI models from multiple providers.

When you install pi-free, it:

1. Registers free-tier providers with Pi's model picker — Kilo (free), Cline (free), LLM7 (free), TokenRouter (1 free model), ZenMux (paid), CrofAI (paid), b.ai (paid, 1 free promo model), Ollama Cloud (freemium), SambaNova (freemium), Codestral (freemium), DeepInfra (trial credit), Together AI (trial credit), Novita (paid), Routeway (paid), and more

2. Captures Pi's built-in OpenCode and OpenRouter providers with a free/paid toggle — OpenCode and OpenRouter are now built into Pi; pi-free adds /toggle-opencode and /toggle-openrouter so you can switch between free-only and all models without restart

3. Fetches models dynamically from provider APIs — ZenMux, CrofAI, and Pi's built-in providers (Mistral, Groq, Cerebras, xAI, Hugging Face, OpenRouter) when API keys are configured

4. Filters to show only free models by default for providers that expose pricing — You see only the models that cost $0 to use. Paid models are hidden until you explicitly toggle them on.

5. Provides per-provider toggle commands — Run /toggle-{provider} (e.g., /toggle-kilo) to switch between free-only mode and showing all models including paid ones. Changes apply immediately and your preference is saved for the next Pi restart.

6. Handles authentication for you — OAuth flows (Kilo, Cline) open your browser automatically; API keys are read from ~/.pi/free.json or environment variables

7. Adds Coding Index scores — Model names include a coding benchmark score (CI: 45.2) to help you pick capable coding models at a glance

8. Persists your preferences — Your toggle choices (free vs all models) are saved to ~/.pi/free.json and remembered across Pi restarts

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How to use

1. Install the extension

pi install git:github.com/apmantza/pi-free

2. Open the model picker

Start Pi and press Ctrl+L to open the model picker.

Free models are shown by default — look for the provider prefixes:

✅ Free Models (no payment required):

• kilo/ — Kilo models (free models available immediately, more after /login kilo)
• openrouter/ — OpenRouter models (free account required)
• cline/ — Cline models (run /login cline to use)
• llm7/ — LLM7 gateway models (free tier: default/fast selectors, 100 req/hr)
• tokenrouter/ — TokenRouter gateway (1 free model: MiniMax-M3; requires API key with credits for the rest)

🔄 Freemium (free tier with limits, then paid):

• ollama-cloud/ — Ollama Cloud models (usage-based free tier, resets every 5 hours + 7 days)
• sambanova/ — SambaNova Cloud models (20-480 RPM free, no credit card required)
• codestral/ — Codestral via Mistral (free Experiment plan: 2 req/min, 1B tokens/month)

💳 Paid Providers (API key with credits required):

• zenmux/ — ZenMux AI gateway (200+ models from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, etc.)
• crofai/ — CrofAI OpenAI-compatible API (streaming, reasoning models)
• deepinfra/ — DeepInfra inference cloud ($5 one-time trial credit, no credit card)
• novita/ — Novita AI (100+ open-source models, OpenAI-compatible, 3 free models)
• routeway/ — Routeway AI gateway (OpenAI-compatible, :free models)
• together/ — Together AI ($1 one-time trial credit, 200+ open-source models)

Note: Paid providers may occasionally offer free models or promotional credits. The isFreeModel helper automatically detects free models based on provider pricing data or model names containing "free". For providers that don't expose pricing (like CrofAI), only models with "free" in their names are marked as free.

🔧 Dynamic API Providers (fetched when API key configured):

• mistral/ — Mistral models (when MISTRAL_API_KEY set)
• groq/ — Groq models (when GROQ_API_KEY set)
• cerebras/ — Cerebras models (when CEREBRAS_API_KEY set)
• xai/ — xAI models (when XAI_API_KEY set)
• huggingface/ — Hugging Face models (when HF_TOKEN set)
• openrouter/ — OpenRouter models (fetched from openrouter.ai, when OPENROUTER_API_KEY set)
• fastrouter/ — FastRouter models (always discovered, 170+ models, no auth for listing)

Note: Fireworks and NVIDIA NIM are now built-in Pi providers — no extension needed. Set FIREWORKS_API_KEY or NVIDIA_API_KEY to use them directly.

3. Toggle between free and paid models

Want to see paid models too? Run the toggle command for your provider:

/toggle-kilo       # Toggle Kilo (✅ offers free models)
/toggle-openrouter # Toggle OpenRouter (✅ offers free models)
/toggle-opencode   # Toggle OpenCode (✅ offers free models)
/toggle-cline      # Toggle Cline (✅ offers free models)
/toggle-ollama     # Toggle Ollama Cloud (🔄 freemium)
/toggle-mistral    # Toggle Mistral (🔧 dynamic - needs API key)
/toggle-groq       # Toggle Groq (🔧 dynamic - needs API key)
/toggle-cerebras   # Toggle Cerebras (🔧 dynamic - needs API key)
/toggle-xai        # Toggle xAI (🔧 dynamic - needs API key)
/toggle-huggingface # Toggle Hugging Face (🔧 dynamic - needs HF_TOKEN)
/toggle-zenmux    # Toggle ZenMux (💳 paid - needs API key with credits)
/toggle-crofai    # Toggle CrofAI (💳 paid - needs API key with credits)
/toggle-codestral # Toggle Codestral (🔄 free Experiment plan)
/toggle-deepinfra # Toggle DeepInfra (💳 trial credit provider)
/toggle-together  # Toggle Together AI (💳 trial credit provider)
/toggle-sambanova # Toggle SambaNova (🔄 freemium)
/toggle-llm7      # Toggle LLM7 (✅ free gateway)
/toggle-novita    # Toggle Novita AI (💳 paid — 3 free models)
/toggle-routeway  # Toggle Routeway AI (💳 paid — has :free models)
/toggle-fastrouter # Toggle FastRouter (🔧 dynamic — always discovered)
/toggle-tokenrouter # Toggle TokenRouter (💳 paid — 1 free model)

Notes:

• Toggle commands are mainly for ✅ and 🔄 providers — to switch between "free models only" vs "show paid models too"
• 🔧 Dynamic providers show all fetched models by default — the toggle filters the list when you have an API key configured
• Freemium providers show all models by default; you manage your usage limits via their dashboards

4. Add API keys for more providers (optional)

Some providers require a free account or API key.

The first time you run Pi after installing this extension, a config file is automatically created:

• Linux/Mac: ~/.pi/free.json
• Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.pi\free.json

Add your API keys to this file:

{
  "ollama_api_key": "...",
  "mistral_api_key": "...",
  "codestral_api_key": "...",
  "deepinfra_api_key": "...",
  "sambanova_api_key": "...",
  "llm7_api_key": "...",
  "zenmux_api_key": "...",
  "crofai_api_key": "...",
  "routeway_api_key": "sk-..."
}

Or set environment variables instead (same names, uppercase: OPENROUTER_API_KEY, OLLAMA_API_KEY, etc.)

If ~/.pi/free.json contains invalid JSON, pi-free now logs the parse error to ~/.pi/free.log so you can fix the file quickly.

See the Providers That Need Authentication section below for detailed setup instructions per provider.

5. Quick commands reference

Command	What it does
/toggle-{provider}	Switch between free-only and all models for that provider
/toggle-free	Toggle global free-only mode for ALL providers
/free-providers	Show free/paid model counts for all providers
/free-telemetry	Show real-world performance data (tokens/s, latency, success rate) for free models
/clear-free-telemetry	Clear all stored telemetry data
/login kilo	Start OAuth flow for Kilo
/login cline	Start OAuth flow for Cline
/logout kilo	Clear Kilo OAuth credentials
/logout cline	Clear Cline OAuth credentials

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Features

🔍 Model Availability Probing

Some provider APIs list models that return errors when you try to use them (expired free promotions, decommissioned models, server spin-down). pi-free automatically detects and hides broken models:

• Ollama Cloud: /probe-ollama — probes for 403 errors, auto-hides inaccessible models
• Routeway: /probe-routeway — probes for 5xx/404 errors, auto-hides broken models
• OpenCode: /probe-opencode, /probe-opencode-go — probes for expired free promotions (reports only, no auto-hide)
• DeepInfra: /probe-deepinfra — probes for 404/5xx errors, auto-hides broken models
• SambaNova: /probe-sambanova — probes for 404/5xx errors, auto-hides broken models
• Together AI: /probe-together — probes for 404/5xx errors, auto-hides broken models
• Novita AI: /probe-novita — probes for 404/5xx errors, auto-hides broken models

All probes use a 24-hour probe cache to avoid re-checking recently-verified models. Run any probe command manually to force a full re-check, or let the lazy auto-probe on first session_start handle it.

🎯 Coding Index (CI) Scores

Every model shows a Coding Index score (e.g., CI: 52.3) in the model picker:

• Benchmark-based — Scores derived from Artificial Analysis coding benchmarks (HumanEval, MBPP, etc.)
• Quality indicator — Higher scores = better coding performance
• All providers — Applied to every model from every provider (Mistral, Groq, Cerebras, etc.)

Missing CI scores? Provider model IDs often don't match benchmark database keys exactly. pi-free applies provider-specific normalization to improve matching:

Provider	Normalization Applied
Fireworks	Strips vendor prefixes (meta/, mistralai/, microsoft/, etc.)
Groq	Removes -versatile and numeric suffixes (-32768)
Cerebras	Normalizes llama3.1 → llama-3.1, adds instruct suffix
Mistral	Strips -latest suffix
Ollama	Converts model:tag → model-tag

Debug missing scores: Check ~/.pi/modelmatch.log to see which models matched/didn't match and what normalization was applied.

🔄 Free/Paid Model Toggling

Providers have different pricing models. pi-free handles them all:

• Free-only by default — Shows only zero-cost models initially
• Auto-probe on session_start — Lazy background probes detect broken models automatically on your first session; no manual command needed
• Per-provider toggles — Run /toggle-{provider} to switch between "free only" vs "all models"
• Persists across sessions — Your preference is saved to ~/.pi/free.json
• Instant updates — Changes apply immediately; no Pi restart needed

Provider types:

• ✅ Free providers (Kilo, Cline) — Toggle between free-only vs paid models
• 🔄 Freemium (Ollama, SambaNova) — Free tier with limits, toggle shows all
• 🔧 Dynamic API (Mistral, Groq, Cerebras, xAI) — Fetched when API key configured, toggle filters the list

🔐 OAuth + API Key Handling

Authentication is handled automatically:

• OAuth flows — /login kilo and /login cline open your browser, wait for authorization, and complete automatically
• Multiple auth sources — API keys read from ~/.pi/free.json, environment variables, or standard Pi auth files (~/.pi/agent/auth.json)

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Using Free Models (No Setup Required)

Kilo (free models, more after login)

Kilo shows free models immediately. To unlock all models, authenticate with Kilo's free OAuth:

/login kilo

This command will:

1. Open your browser to Kilo's authorization page
2. Show a device code in Pi's UI
3. Wait for you to authorize in the browser
4. Automatically complete login once approved

• No credit card required
• Free tier: 200 requests/hour
• After login, run /toggle-kilo to switch between free-only and all models

Cline (free account)

Cline models appear immediately in the model picker. To use them, authenticate with Cline's free account:

/login cline

This command will:

1. Open your browser to Cline's sign-in page
2. Wait for you to complete sign-in
3. Automatically complete login once approved

• Free account required (no credit card)
• Uses local ports 48801-48811 for OAuth callback

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Providers That Need Authentication

Some providers require a free account or API key to access their free tiers.

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🆓 Free Providers

OpenRouter (free models available)

Get a free API key at openrouter.ai/keys, then either:

Option A: Environment variable

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

Option B: Pi's auth file (~/.pi/agent/auth.json)

OpenRouter reads its key from Pi's built-in auth storage. Set it via:

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

Then use /toggle-openrouter to switch between free-only and all models.

Note: openrouter_api_key in ~/.pi/free.json is ignored. OpenRouter always reads from Pi's auth system to avoid stale keys.

NVIDIA NIM (now built-in)

NVIDIA NIM is now a built-in Pi provider — no extension needed. Set NVIDIA_API_KEY to use it directly with Pi's built-in model picker.

Ollama Cloud

Get an API key from ollama.com/settings/keys, then:

Option A: Environment variable

export OLLAMA_API_KEY="..."
export OLLAMA_SHOW_PAID=true

Option B: Config file (~/.pi/free.json)

{
  "ollama_api_key": "YOUR_KEY",
  "ollama_show_paid": true
}

Note: Ollama requires OLLAMA_SHOW_PAID=true because they have usage limits on their cloud API.

Free tier resets every 5 hours + 7 days.

Mistral (free API key)

Add API key to ~/.pi/free.json or environment variables:

export MISTRAL_API_KEY="..."

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💳 Paid Providers

Codestral (free Experiment plan)

Codestral is Mistral's code-focused model via codestral.mistral.ai:

• Free tier (Experiment plan): 2 req/min, 500K tokens/min, 1B tokens/month
• No credit card — phone verification only
• Sign up at https://console.mistral.ai/codestral

export CODESTRAL_API_KEY="..."

Or add to ~/.pi/free.json:

{
  "codestral_api_key": "YOUR_KEY"
}

Note: Codestral uses Mistral's SDK (mistral-conversations API type), not OpenAI-completions.

LLM7.io (free gateway)

LLM7 routes across multiple providers through a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint:

• Free tier: default/fast selectors, 100 req/hr, 20 req/min
• No credit card required
• Get free token at https://token.llm7.io/

export LLM7_API_KEY="..."

DeepInfra ($5 trial credit)

AI inference cloud with 100+ open-source models:

• $5 one-time credit on signup (no credit card)
• ~5M tokens, expires after 90 days
• 60 RPM (varies by model)

export DEEPINFRA_TOKEN="..."

Together AI ($1 trial credit)

Fast inference on 200+ open-source models:

• $1 one-time credit on signup (no credit card)
• 138 chat models (Llama, DeepSeek, Qwen, Mixtral, etc.)
• 60 RPM, 600 RPD (varies by model)

export TOGETHER_AI_API_KEY="..."

SambaNova Cloud (free tier)

Fast inference on custom RDU hardware:

• Free tier: 20-480 RPM, 400-9600 RPD (no credit card)
• Models include Llama 3.3 70B, DeepSeek-V3/R1, Llama 4 Maverick

export SAMBANOVA_API_KEY="..."

b.ai (paid gateway with 1 free promo model)

OpenAI-compatible gateway at api.b.ai/v1 providing access to 29 frontier models:

• Anthropic: Claude Opus 4.5–4.8, Claude Sonnet 4.5–4.6, Claude Haiku 4.5
• OpenAI: GPT-5.5, GPT-5.5 Instant, GPT-5.4, GPT-5.4 Pro/Mini/Nano, GPT-5.2, GPT-5 Mini/Nano
• Google: Gemini 3.1 Pro, Gemini 3 Flash, Gemini 3.5 Flash
• DeepSeek: V4 Pro, V4 Flash, V3.2
• GLM: GLM-5.x family
• Other: Kimi K2.5, Qwen 3.6-27B, MiniMax M3 / M2.7

Currently advertises MiniMax-M3 as a limited-time free promotional model. All other models are paid — they're visible by default (toggle with /toggle-bai to show free-only).

export BAI_API_KEY="sk-..."

Or add to ~/.pi/free.json:

{
  "bai_api_key": "sk-...",
  "bai_show_paid": true
}

Get a key at https://b.ai/.

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Slash Commands

Each provider has toggle commands to switch between free and all models:

Command	Action
/toggle-kilo	Toggle between free/all Kilo models
/toggle-openrouter	Toggle between free/all OpenRouter models
/toggle-opencode	Toggle between free/all OpenCode models
/toggle-cline	Toggle between free/all Cline models
/toggle-ollama	Toggle between free/all Ollama Cloud models
/toggle-mistral	Toggle between free/all Mistral models (🔧 dynamic)
/toggle-groq	Toggle between free/all Groq models (🔧 dynamic)
/toggle-cerebras	Toggle between free/all Cerebras models (🔧 dynamic)
/toggle-xai	Toggle between free/all xAI models (🔧 dynamic)
/toggle-huggingface	Toggle between free/all Hugging Face models (🔧 dynamic)
/toggle-codestral	Toggle Codestral (🔄 freemium)
/toggle-deepinfra	Toggle DeepInfra (💳 trial credit)
/toggle-together	Toggle Together AI (💳 trial credit)
/toggle-sambanova	Toggle SambaNova (🔄 freemium)
/toggle-bai	Toggle b.ai (💳 paid — 1 free promo model)
/toggle-llm7	Toggle LLM7 (✅ free gateway)
/toggle-zenmux	Toggle ZenMux (💳 paid)
/toggle-crofai	Toggle CrofAI (💳 paid)
/toggle-novita	Toggle Novita AI (💳 paid)
/toggle-routeway	Toggle Routeway AI (💳 paid)
/toggle-fastrouter	Toggle FastRouter (🔧 dynamic)
/toggle-tokenrouter	Toggle TokenRouter (💳 paid — 1 free model)
/ollama-cloud-refresh	Re-fetch Ollama Cloud models live (no restart needed)
/probe-ollama	Test Ollama Cloud models for 403 errors (auto-hide)

The toggle command:

• For ✅ free providers: Switches between showing only free models vs. all available models (including paid)
• For 🔄 freemium providers: Shows all models by default; toggle switches between filtered and full list
• For 🔧 dynamic API providers: Filters the model list when you have an API key configured
• Persists your preference to ~/.pi/free.json for next startup

Probe Commands (Health Check)

Test models for errors and auto-hide broken ones:

Command	What it does
/probe-ollama	Test all Ollama Cloud models, auto-hide 403s
/probe-routeway	Test all Routeway models, auto-hide 5xx/404s
/probe-opencode	Test all OpenCode free models for expired promotions
/probe-opencode-go	Test all OpenCode Go free models for expired promotions
/probe-deepinfra	Test all DeepInfra models for availability, auto-hide broken
/probe-sambanova	Test all SambaNova models for availability, auto-hide broken
/probe-together	Test all Together AI models for availability, auto-hide broken
/probe-novita	Test all Novita AI models for availability, auto-hide broken

How it works:

1. Sends a minimal test request to every model
2. Identifies broken models (404/403 responses)
3. Auto-hides broken models in your config (provider-scoped: "ollama/kimi-k2.6")
4. Re-registers the provider so broken models disappear immediately
5. Hidden models persist across Pi restarts

Use these when you see models that appear in the picker but fail when you try to use them.

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Configuration

Create ~/.pi/free.json in your home directory:

{
  "mistral_api_key": "YOUR_MISTRAL_KEY",
  "ollama_api_key": "YOUR_OLLAMA_KEY",
  "ollama_show_paid": true,
  "hidden_models": ["model-id-to-hide"]
}

Or use environment variables (same names, uppercase):

export MISTRAL_API_KEY="..."
export OLLAMA_API_KEY="..."

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Logging & Debugging

pi-free writes extension logs to:

• Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.pi\free.log
• Linux/macOS: ~/.pi/free.log

If the extension fails to read ~/.pi/free.json, check this log first — config parse errors are written here.

# Console log verbosity (default: error)
LOG_LEVEL=debug

# File log verbosity (default: debug)
PI_FREE_LOG_LEVEL=debug

# Custom log path (optional)
PI_FREE_LOG_PATH=/tmp/pi-free.log

# Disable file logging
PI_FREE_FILE_LOG=false

Model Matching Debug Log

To diagnose why some models don't show Coding Index scores, pi-free writes detailed matching diagnostics to:

• Windows: %USERPROFILE%\.pi\modelmatch.log
• Linux/macOS: ~/.pi/modelmatch.log

Log format:

timestamp|provider|modelId|modelName|action|strategy|normalizedId|matchKey|codingIndex|details

Example entries:

2026-04-26T10:30:00Z|nvidia|meta/llama-3.1-405b-instruct|Llama 3.1 405B|match|provider-normalized:strip-nvidia-prefix|llama-3.1-405b-instruct|llama-3.1-instruct-405b|52.3|
2026-04-26T10:30:01Z|groq|llama-3.1-70b-versatile|Llama 3.1 70B Versatile|match|strip-groq-versatile|llama-3.1-70b|llama-3.1-instruct-70b|48.5|
2026-04-26T10:30:02Z|groq|mixtral-8x7b-instruct|Mixtral 8x7B|miss|all-strategies-failed|mixtral-8x7b-instruct|||

Common mismatch patterns:

• miss + all-strategies-failed = Model not in benchmark database or ID format not recognized
• Check normalizedId column to see what the lookup tried against

View the log:

# Pretty-print with column alignment
cat ~/.pi/modelmatch.log | column -t -s '|'

# See only misses (models without CI scores)
grep '|miss|' ~/.pi/modelmatch.log

# See stats for specific provider
grep '|nvidia|' ~/.pi/modelmatch.log | grep -c '|match|'

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License

MIT — See LICENSE

Questions? Open an issue