How I code with AI on a budget/free

TL;DR Highlight

A budget-friendly AI coding workflow: use free model tabs for problem-solving and cheap models for file editing — separating the 'brain' from the 'hands'.

Who Should Read

Individual developers or side project builders who find AI coding tool API costs (Cursor, Cline, etc.) too expensive. People who want to combine multiple free models for practical coding.

Core Mechanics

Core strategy: separate 'brain' and 'hands'. Use powerful models' free web chat (Claude, Gemini 2.5 Pro) for hard problem analysis and solution design, then use cheap/free models (GPT 4.1) via Cline for actual file edits.
Agent tools (Cline, Cursor) add tool descriptions, MCP server configs, etc. to prompts, consuming tokens and potentially degrading model output quality.
The 'surgical' approach — giving up agentic automation and using 100x smaller models with precise, targeted edits — was argued to be sufficient for most tasks.
repomix can flatten a project into a single file for pasting into free web chat windows.

Evidence

Multiple commenters agreed that agent tools make models 'dumber'. One confirmed: 'Results are better pasting code into web chat than using GitHub Copilot or Cursor.'
A user advocating the 'surgical' approach said giving up agents makes 100x smaller models sufficient. Context is key — project rules, conventions, and targeted file content matter more than model size.
Free tiers mentioned: AI Studio (Gemini 2.5 Pro), lmarena.ai (Claude Opus 4), various OpenRouter free models

How to Apply

If AI coding costs are a concern: handle complex bug analysis and architecture design in free web chat (AI Studio with Gemini 2.5 Pro, lmarena.ai with Claude Opus 4), then hand the solution to a cheap agent (Cline/GPT 4.1) for file edits only.
Use repomix (npx repomix) to flatten your project into a single file for pasting into free web chat — gives the model full context without agent overhead.
Consider ditching full agentic automation for a 'surgical' approach — precise prompts targeting specific files with smaller, cheaper models can match results.

Code Example

snippet

# Bundle project code into a single file with repomix
npx repomix

# Example of context block format generated by AI Code Prep
# Place the question at the top and bottom to improve AI focus
"""
Can you help me figure out why my program does x instead of y?

fileName.js:
<code>
... contents ...
</code>

nextFile.py:
<code>
import example
...
</code>

Can you help me figure out why my program does x instead of y?
"""

Terminology

ClineAn AI coding agent running in VS Code. Can directly read and modify files for automated coding — but agent overhead in prompts can degrade model performance.

MCPModel Context Protocol. A standard protocol for AI tools to communicate with external services (filesystem, DB, etc.). Convenient but adds extra context to prompts that can affect model quality.