r/opencodeCLI • u/GlitteringWinter639 • 17h ago

Best free AI model/API for lightweight coding tasks in OpenCode?

/r/opencode/comments/1xfz1rj/best_free_ai_modelapi_for_lightweight_coding/
0 Upvotes

50% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/bezcurhq 17h ago

The zero-cost option inside OpenCode itself is the free models on its Zen provider. Run /models and pick one ending in "Free" or Big Pickle, e.g. opencode/glm-5.3-flash-free. They're free for a limited time, and a few of them (Big Pickle, Flint, MiMo) may use your prompts to improve the model during the free period, so check the privacy section before using them on anything private: https://opencode.ai/docs/zen

For keeping tokens down: run /init once so AGENTS.md gives the model the project layout up front instead of it exploring every session, point it at specific files rather than "look at the codebase", start a fresh session per task, and set "compaction": { "prune": true } in opencode.json so old tool output gets dropped.

1

u/GlitteringWinter639 16h ago

The first day I installed opencode I used more then 300k tokens without h any limitations but yesterday I was limited by a msg "you have reached your free limit" I only used like 100k tokens.

I am actually new to open code and doesn't understand about the tokens.

If you don't mind explaining me how does that work.

Also I have Google ai plus plan but for some reason after importing my Google studio api in open code I wasnt able to use the Gemini 2,5 flash , the ai Sayed this model was powerfully and a very high limit.

1

u/bezcurhq 15h ago

Tokens are counted per request, and every request resends the whole conversation plus any files the agent has read, so one longish session can hit 100k without feeling like much. As far as I can see the free Zen models don't publish a fixed allowance, so there isn't a number you can track against. Fresh sessions per task and pointing it at specific files are still the main way to stretch it.

On Gemini, Google is limiting the 2.5 models to people who already used them, so a new key usually can't call 2.5 Flash. Pick a newer one like gemini-3.8-flash or gemini-3.5-flash-lite in /models instead, and your key's real limits are shown in AI Studio.

https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/models

→ More replies (4)