← All guides · provider record →
GitHub Models — free tier setup
What you get free
A permanent free prototyping tier for every GitHub account: 45+ models from OpenAI, DeepSeek, Meta, and others behind one OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Catalog quota: "Low models (Copilot Free/Pro): 15 requests/minute, 150 requests/day, 8000 in / 4000 out tokens per request, 5 concurrent. High models (Free/Pro): 10 requests/minute, 50 requests/day, 8000 in / 4000 out tokens per request, 2 concurrent. Limits: Dependent on Copilot subscription tier (Free/Pro/Pro+/Business/Enterprise)." Category: permanent_free. The gotcha that matters: the per-request token caps (8K in / 4K out) apply regardless of a model's advertised context window — a "1M context" model still only accepts 8K input tokens per request here.
Friction check
| Credit card | no |
| Phone verification | no |
| Org/membership | GitHub account required; no org needed |
| Est. time to first key | 5m |
| Trains on your prompts | unknown ("Responsible use of GitHub Models" policy applies; training/logging specifics not confirmed) |
The rest of this guide — the key-obtain walkthrough, first request, the limits that will bite you, and the rotation runbook — ships with the Indie field library. What you’ve read above is the real first section, not a blurred preview; the remainder simply isn’t in this page.