Manages free AI models from OpenRouter for OpenClaw. Automatically ranks models by quality, configures fallbacks for rate-limit handling, and updates opencla...
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Configures OpenClaw to use free AI models from OpenRouter. Sets the best free model as primary, adds ranked fallbacks so rate limits don't interrupt the user, and preserves existing config.
Before running any FreeRide command, ensure:
OPENROUTER_API_KEY is set. Check with
echo $OPENROUTER_API_KEYexport OPENROUTER_API_KEY="sk-or-v1-..." # Or persist it: openclaw config set env.OPENROUTER_API_KEY "sk-or-v1-..."
The
CLI is installed. Check with freeride
which freeridecd ~/.openclaw/workspace/skills/free-ride pip install -e .
When the user wants free AI, run these steps in order:
# Step 1: Configure best free model + fallbacks freeride autoStep 2: Restart gateway so OpenClaw picks up the changes
openclaw gateway restart
That's it. The user now has free AI with automatic fallback switching.
Verify by telling the user to send
/status| Command | When to use it |
|---|---|
| User wants free AI set up (most common) |
| User wants fallbacks but wants to keep their current primary model |
| User wants more fallbacks (default is 5) |
| User wants to see available free models |
| User wants to see all free models |
| User wants a specific model (e.g. |
| Add specific model as fallback only |
| Check current FreeRide configuration |
| Update only the fallback models |
| Force refresh the cached model list |
After any command that changes config, always run
.openclaw gateway restart
FreeRide updates only these keys in
~/.openclaw/openclaw.jsonagents.defaults.model.primaryopenrouter/qwen/qwen3-coder:freeagents.defaults.model.fallbacks["openrouter/free", "nvidia/nemotron:free", ...]agents.defaults.models/modelEverything else (gateway, channels, plugins, env, customInstructions, named agents) is preserved.
The first fallback is always
openrouter/freeFor auto-rotation when rate limited, the user can run:
freeride-watcher --daemon # Continuous monitoring freeride-watcher --rotate # Force rotate now freeride-watcher --status # Check rotation history
| Problem | Fix |
|---|---|
| |
| User needs a key from https://openrouter.ai/keys |
| Changes not taking effect | |
| Agent shows 0 tokens | Check |
No automatic installation available. Please visit the source repository for installation instructions.
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