Run your first AI agent in Java — for free, with Mistral

Every "build an AI agent" tutorial I find assumes two things: you write Python, and you have a paid OpenAI key. I write Java and I didn't want to pay just to experiment.

So here's the version nobody writes: a real LLM-backed agent, on the JVM, for free — using Mistral's free tier and AgentFlow4J, an open-source orchestration runtime on top of Spring AI. About ten minutes, start to finish.

Step 1 — Create a Mistral account

Go to console.mistral.ai and sign up (email, Google, or GitHub). You land on La Plateforme, the developer console.

Step 2 — Get a free API key