Free Ride - Unlimited free AI
Configure OpenClaw to use free AI models from OpenRouter with automatic quality ranking, fallback chains, and rate-limit handling.
# Free Ride - Unlimited free AI Configure OpenClaw to use free AI models from OpenRouter with automatic quality ranking, fallback chains, and rate-limit handling. FreeRide configures OpenClaw to use free AI models available on OpenRouter. It automatically ranks available free models by quality, sets the best one as your primary model, and configures a chain of fallback models so rate limits never interrupt your workflow. All existing OpenClaw configuration (gateway, channels, plugins, custom instructions) is preserved. ## How It Works The freeride auto command fetches the current list of free models from OpenRouter, ranks them by quality, and writes the optimal configuration to ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json . It sets the top-ranked model as primary, adds ranked fallbacks (default 5, configurable), and always includes OpenRouter's smart router ( openrouter/free ) as the first fallback. After configuration, a gateway restart applies the changes immediately. ## Key Features - **Automatic Model Selection**: Ranks free models by quality and selects the best as primary - **Fallback Chain**: Configures multiple fallback models so rate limits on one model seamlessly switch to the next - **Smart Router Integration**: Always includes OpenRouter's smart router as first fallback, which auto-picks the best available model - **Manual Model Switching**: Use freeride switch to select a specific model by name - **Config Preservation**: Only updates model-related keys; all other OpenClaw settings remain untouched - **Optional Watcher Daemon**: Auto-rotates models when rate-limited via freeride-watcher --daemon ## Requirements - **OpenRouter API Key**: Free key from openrouter.ai/keys, required to access free models on OpenRouter ## Use Cases - **Cost-Free AI Usage**: Run OpenClaw entirely on free models without any AI provider costs - **Rate Limit Resilience**: Automatic fallback switching ensures uninterrupted AI access even when individual models hit rate limits - **Model Exploration**: Easily browse and switch between available free models to find the best fit for your use case ## Installation Install via: `npx clawhub@latest install free-ride`