Your request timed out. What's your first move? Retry immediately? Blame the model? Check the p50? All three instincts are wrong. On free tiers, all three.
I keep seeing the same four myths in issue trackers, Discord threads, and code reviews. So here's a myth-busting FAQ with a reproducible probe. The probe is standard-library Python. One file. Any OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
AI promoted everyone to reviewer. Almost nobody reviews the queue in front of the model. That's the gap this post covers.
I build small apps on free model endpoints. When I test harnesses against MonkeyCode's free model access and free server, I watch the same myths appear on day one. Disclosure: This article was prepared as part of MonkeyCode's product outreach. The workflow works on any endpoint, not just theirs.
Myth 1: "The free tier runs a dumber model"
