The Free API Command Engine™a coding agent that builds for $0.
Cohere just gave away an agentic coding model. Wire it into Hermes and you get an agent that writes files, runs tools and builds real things — for free. The thing below? It built that itself.
"North Mini Code is Cohere's first agentic coding model… a 30B mixture-of-experts model with 3B active, optimized for code generation, agentic software engineering, and terminal tasks."
— Cohere, June 2026
A genuinely free coding agent.
Cohere shipped North Mini Code — the first model in its new "North" family, built for agentic software engineering.
It's small and fast (30B total, only 3B active at a time), holds 256,000 tokens of context, and does interleaved reasoning + tool calls — exactly what an agent needs to actually do work.
The weights are open under Apache 2.0. And on OpenRouter, it's $0 in, $0 out. Not a trial. Free.
So the obvious move: point a real agent at it. That's where Hermes comes in — it turns the free model into an agent that writes files, runs commands, and builds things on your machine. I named that setup the Free API Command Engine.
This one's a real agentic coder — it generalises across agent harnesses and runs ~2.8× the throughput of comparable small models.
The constellation toy at the top? It wrote that itself, 234 lines, in one command. For nothing.
The Free API Command Engine™ — five moves.
A free model is just an engine. This is how you turn it into a worker that builds for you — find it, wire it, command it, build with it, then multiply it.
Find
Spot the free, capable models the moment they land (like North Mini Code on OpenRouter). Free + agentic is the combo to watch.
Wire
Drop it into Hermes as its own profile in two minutes — one key, one model line. Now it's an agent, not just a chat box.
Command
Give it a job in plain English. It reasons, calls tools, writes files, runs commands — the full agent loop, on the free model.
Build
It ships real artifacts — pages, scripts, toys, tools — into its workspace. You review, you keep. Cost: nothing.
Multiply
Because it's free, run several at once. A whole crew of agents building in parallel, with no meter running.
I was you. Rationing my agents.
Before
I wanted agents running all day — building, fixing, trying things.
But every agent call billed against a paid model.
So I held back. I'd think twice before letting one loose on a build.
"Let it run overnight" meant "watch the cost climb overnight."
Then free agentic models like North Mini Code showed up.
After
Now I keep a free agent wired into Hermes, ready to build.
I throw it the small stuff — scaffolds, toys, first drafts, throwaway tools — and it just does it.
I run a few at once when I need to. No meter.
And I save the premium models for the jobs that actually deserve them.
You can wire this in today. Two minutes. Zero cost.
Real people. Real wins. Inside the Boardroom.
Here's what's happening for members already running free + open models inside their stack — agency owners, ecom founders, creators, solo operators.
Commit to wiring one in today.
You've seen it — a free model that builds real things.
The setup below takes two minutes.
So promise yourself one thing: before you sleep tonight, you'll wire a free agent into your stack and give it one real job.
The people sitting still are still paying for every experiment. The people running free agents today are the ones who get to try ten times as much.
Be one of those people.
Commit to wiring it in today. It's free. The only cost is not doing it.
Wire it into Hermes in two minutes.
This is exactly how I set it up. If you can paste a few lines, you can do this.
Get a free OpenRouter key
Sign up and create a key. OpenRouter is the gateway that serves North Mini Code for free.
# grab it at openrouter.ai/keys — then keep it handyCreate a Hermes profile
Make a fresh, isolated agent. Cloning an existing OpenRouter profile carries the wiring over.
hermes profile create north-mini --clone-from fusion \
--description "Free Cohere North Mini Code via OpenRouter — agentic builds, zero cost"Add your key
Drop the key into the profile's .env (or run north-mini setup).
echo 'OPENROUTER_API_KEY=sk-or-...' >> ~/.hermes/profiles/north-mini/.envPoint it at the model
In ~/.hermes/profiles/north-mini/config.yaml, set the model + provider. The model id is the plain OpenRouter slug — no openrouter/ prefix.
model:
default: cohere/north-mini-code:free
provider: openrouterTest it
One line confirms it's alive.
north-mini -z "Reply with exactly: NORTH-OK"Put it to work
Now command it. It'll reason, write files, and build — for free.
north-mini -z "Build a self-contained constellation.html generative-art toy. Use the write_file tool, then tell me the path."The one gotcha: use cohere/north-mini-code:free as the model, with provider: openrouter separately. Don't prefix it with openrouter/ — that's only for OpenRouter's own house models. Get that right and it just works.
One command. One free build.
I gave the free agent a single instruction — "build a neon constellation toy" — and it wrote the whole thing itself, 234 lines, and dropped it in its workspace. No edits from me. The live version is at the top of this page; here's a still:
That's the whole point of the Free API Command Engine: the model is free, the agent does the work, and you keep what it builds.
Paying to experiment vs experimenting for free.
- Every agent build bills against a paid model
- You ration runs to keep the cost down
- "Let it run overnight" = watch the meter climb
- Throwaway experiments feel too expensive to try
- One paid agent at a time, carefully
- A free agentic model wired into Hermes
- Run it all day — there's no meter
- Throw it every small job without thinking twice
- Spin up several in parallel for nothing
- Save the premium models for the jobs that need them
Want every free + paid model in one dashboard?
North Mini Code is one free engine. The Agent Operating System inside the AI Profit Boardroom runs all of them — free and paid — from one place that knows your business and routes each job to the right model.
- The full Agent OS — Hermes, profiles, every model wired in
- Route by job — free models for the grind, premium for the hard calls
- 4 coaching calls a week + daily tutorials as new models drop
- A 30-day roadmap + every prompt + the Obsidian memory setup
- 3,600+ members across 38 countries — someone's online 24/7
The three beliefs holding you back.
"Free models can't really build anything."
This one wrote a 234-line interactive toy from one command. Free + agentic is a different thing than free + chat.
"Setting up a new model is a faff."
It's one profile, one key, one model line — two minutes, copy-paste. The steps above are the whole job.
"I'll just keep using my paid one for everything."
Then you keep paying for the cheap jobs too. Route the grind to free, save the premium for what's worth it — that's the whole game now.
158 pages of members who stopped overpaying and started shipping — real businesses, real wins.
Read the 158-page testimonials doc →What you just gained.
Cohere North Mini Code — $0 in, $0 out on OpenRouter.
Wired into Hermes, it writes files + runs tools.
One profile, one key, one model line.
One command → a finished artifact in its workspace.
No meter — spin up several in parallel.
Apache-2.0 weights; keep everything it makes.
The best agent to experiment with is the one that's free.
Make the free model part of your system.
New free models drop every few weeks now. The Agent Operating System inside the AI Profit Boardroom lets you wire each one in and route work to whatever's best + cheapest — without rebuilding anything.
- The full Agent OS zip — Hermes + every model in one dashboard
- The setup walkthrough, done with you, step by step
- 4 weekly coaching calls, daily tutorials, a 30-day roadmap
- 3,600+ members, a member map, 24/7 community
- 158 pages of member wins — read them here →