Agent skill · marketing growth · bighardperson
freeride
Manages free AI models from OpenRouter for OpenClaw. Automatically ranks models by quality, configures fallbacks for rate-limit handling, and updates openclaw.json. Use when the user mentions free AI, OpenRouter, model switching, rate limits, or wants to reduce AI costs.
Why this skill is useful
Adds commands and workflows for managing free AI models from OpenRouter, which the AI wouldn't generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires freeride installed locally. Requires openrouter account access. About 2k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-04-26. 34 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
FreeRide - Free AI for OpenClaw What This Skill Does 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. Prerequisites Before running any FreeRide command, ensure: 1. OPENROUTERAPIKEY is set. Check with echo $OPENROUTERAPIKEY. If empty, the user must get a free key at https://openrouter.ai/keys and set it: 2. The freeride CLI is installed. Check with which freeride. If not found: Primary Workflow When the user wants free AI, run these steps in order: That's it. The user now has free AI with automatic fallback switching. Verify by telling the user to send /status to check the active model. Commands Reference Command When to use it --------- ---------------- freeride auto User wants free AI set up (most common) freeride auto -f User wants fallbacks but wants to keep their current primary model freeride auto -c 10 User wants more fallbacks (default is 5) freeride list User wants to see available free models freeride list -n 30 User wants to see all free models freeride switch <model> User wants a specific model (e.g. freeride switch qwen3-coder) freeride switch <model> -f Add specific model as fallback only freeride status Check current FreeRide configuration freeride fallbacks Update only the fallback models freeride refresh Force refresh the cached model list After any command that changes config, always run openclaw gateway restart. What It Writes to Config FreeRide updates only these keys in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json: agents.defaults.model.primary — e.g. openrouter/qwen/qwen3-coder:free agents.defaults.model.fallbacks — e.g. ["openrouter/free", "nvidia/nemotron:free", ...] agents.defaults.models — allowlist so /model command shows the free models Everything else (gateway, channels, plugins, env, customInstructions, named agents) is preserved. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills bighardperson/free-ride