This week, DEV is arguing about who reviews AI output (discussion). The community keeps asking the same question. My answer is different. Review the boundary first, not the output. The output is visible. The boundary is not. That is where the risk hides.
Agents get the memory debates. The gateway gets none.
A free AI tier is a shared service. It has a budget, a concurrency ceiling, and no SLA. Treat it that way. Put a gateway between your app and the model. The gateway owns the budget, the queue, and the breaker.
MonkeyCode is an open source project. It offers free model access and a free server option. The free tier gives you a 10M token monthly budget. That number is a constraint, not a feature. Design around it before you build on it. Disclosure: This article was prepared as part of MonkeyCode's product outreach.
Think of the free tier as a water pipe. The pipe has a fixed diameter and a monthly meter. Your app is a set of open taps. Without a valve, the meter empties fast and the pipe floods. The gateway is the valve.
