Everyone is building on free AI tiers right now. Few people review the architecture underneath. A free tier is a system, not a discount.
It has three parts: a token budget, a server, and a gateway between them. Each part fails in its own way, so review all three before you build.
MonkeyCode is an open source project, and it offers free model access plus a free server. Disclosure: This article was prepared as part of MonkeyCode's product outreach. Most free tiers hand you an API key and nothing else, but MonkeyCode also gives you a place to run the code that calls the API.
That means you inherit a full system, not just a credential. Review it the way you would review any dependency.
Constraints first.
