2.8 KiB
Free-tier candidate survey — onboarding pipeline (2026-10-06)
Researched by Timmy (Hermes/DeepSeek). Zeph is running his own pass; reconcile before admitting anyone.
Eligibility (non-negotiable — Alexander, 2026-10-06)
Nobody gets paid. This is a free-tier evaluation: a service earns its place only if it can do daily standups and expend its own free credits to demonstrate value. If a free tier is depleted and continuing requires payment, the service is ineligible — drop it, don't fund it.
The line that matters
A member can only be a daily worker in this pipe if it can read the repo, reason, and commit+push its own work. That requires an API it can drive programmatically. A chat-only bot must be relayed (operated by a human), and its work is then Testimony by construction — it cannot produce its own SHA or command output.
Two roster tiers fall out of this:
- Autonomous — has a free API key → drives its own git clone/commit/push → full evidence rules apply (path/SHA/URL/command+output).
- Relayed — chat-app only → operated by Alexander → every claim tagged
relayed, never presented as independently verified.
Tier 1 — real free API (can be a true daily worker)
| Vendor | Free tier | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Google Gemini | AI Studio free tier, API key, no card | Strongest next hire. Free tier was trimmed for some models (2026), flash-class still free. |
| Mistral | La Plateforme free mode | Already in as Muse/Zeph. |
| Groq | Free API, open-weight models | Fast, no card. |
| OpenRouter free pool | 9 free models (Qwen/GLM/Nemotron/Nex/etc.) | One key, many models. |
Tier 2 — free chat, no free API (relayed only)
| Vendor | Reality |
|---|---|
| ChatGPT (OpenAI) | No free API. Codex CLI has a metered free lane on a ChatGPT login (weekly windows). |
| Claude (Anthropic) | No free tier. Claude Code is paid (Pro $20/mo); ~$5 trial API credits only. |
| GitHub Copilot | Copilot Free is real (2k completions + 50 agent chats/mo, CLI + agent mode) but it's a GitHub-account IDE/CLI, not an API to point a git harness at. |
| Grok (xAI) | Already Cassian; app-route only (SSO cookie), no free API. |
| Meta AI, Perplexity | Chat only. |
Recommendation
- Hire Gemini next (autonomous, free API).
- Then Groq (free API, open models).
- Name-brand chat bots (ChatGPT, Claude) are relay-only unless you accept a browser-relay shim (token-free-gateway-style) — works, but brittle and ToS-gray. Only if the brand name is worth relayed-tier evidence.
Relayed-member rule (draft)
A relayed member's check-in carries relayed in its header and every claim is tagged
relayed; its work is never quoted as independently verified, and it cannot be the sole
source on a claim that will publish.