🚀 AI Free VSCode

Use free AI models directly in Copilot Chat without API keys, billing, or token counting.

AI Free VSCode connects free web-based models through a Playwright browser session — or through a vendor CLI you already have installed, like MiMo Code — and registers them as a Copilot Chat provider.

What it does

• ✅ Integrates free web-based AI models into Copilot Chat
• ✅ Requires no API keys and does not use paid OpenAI endpoints
• ✅ Authenticates via a real browser session (MiMo needs no sign-in at all)
• ✅ Supports streaming, automatic thinking mode, and tool calling
• ✅ Exposes models through a unified provider for VS Code
• ✅ Generates commit messages from your staged diff
• ✅ Inline code suggestions (ghost text) on demand
• ✅ "Fix with AI" Quick Fix on errors/warnings, with a diff preview

Only models from providers you are signed into appear in the picker — no dead entries that fail on use.

Demo

Chat

Generate commit messages

Fix with AI

Supported models

Qwen

DeepSeek

Kimi

⚠️ Kimi is kept out of Copilot Chat (chat: false). Given tools it ignores the text tool-call protocol and falls back to its built-in ipython code interpreter, running a server-side agent loop we cannot feed results to — slow (often minutes) and unreliable. It stays available for commit messages, inline suggestions and Quick Fix, where no tools are involved.

MiMo Code (CLI)

Xiaomi's MiMo, wired through the official MiMo Code CLI instead of a browser session — no API key, no sign-in, nothing stored by the extension.

Setup is the install itself:

npm install -g @mimo-ai/cli   # or: curl -fsSL https://mimo.xiaomi.com/install | bash
mimo                          # first run: pick "MiMo Auto" (free, anonymous)

Only the free anonymous channel is exposed; the paid xiaomi/* models are deliberately left out, since they need a MiMo account. The model appears in the picker as soon as mimo models reports it. If the binary lives outside ~/.mimocode/bin and PATH, point freeAI.mimo.path at it.

How it works

1. The extension registers a single Copilot Chat provider: free-ai-vscode.
2. Signing in launches Playwright and stores the authenticated session in SecretStorage (MiMo is the exception — it needs no sign-in at all, just the CLI, see below).
3. Requests are routed through the providers' private API streams (see Supported models).
4. Responses are delivered to VS Code as streamed chunks.
5. The extension handles tool calling and thinking-mode when available.

Qwen and the Aliyun WAF

chat.qwen.ai sits behind the Aliyun WAF and Alibaba's anti-bot layer, which reject plain server-side requests. Qwen keeps working through a two-tier flow:

1. Direct request (fast path). The Qwen client calls the API directly from Node while mirroring the request headers the web app sends (source, version, x-request-id, timezone, bx-v). That is enough to pass the WAF for most endpoints (e.g. creating a chat), and responses stream natively.

2. Browser bridge (fallback). When a response is a challenge instead of the expected stream — an HTML challenge page, or an x5sec / RGV587 (FAIL_SYS_USER_VALIDATE) JSON body — the request is transparently replayed inside the real browser session, which carries the genuine cookies and browser network fingerprint the WAF trusts. The SSE response is still streamed back to VS Code chunk by chunk.

The bridge reuses the persistent profile created at sign-in (~/.ai-free-vscode/browser-profile), so no extra login is needed, and it degrades gracefully:

1. Headless + stealth first — no visible window (fingerprint is masked so the anti-bot treats the session as a normal browser).
2. If the anti-bot detects it, the bridge escalates to a real (headed) Chrome automatically, with its window minimized so it stays out of your way.
3. If a one-time captcha is required, that window is brought to the front and a notification appears — solve it once, then resend your request. The verification cookie is stored in the profile, so you are not asked again for a while.

You normally don't need to touch this, but you can pin the browser mode in Settings → AI Free VSCode → freeAI.qwen.browserMode (auto / headed / headless; changing it needs a window reload).

This is a best-effort resilience layer. Provider-side anti-bot rules change frequently, so a blocked Qwen request may still occasionally surface — retrying usually clears it.

MiMo and the CLI bridge

MiMo needs no browser, no key and no sign-in: the extension drives the locally installed mimo CLI on its free anonymous channel.

On the first MiMo request it starts a headless mimocode server (mimo serve on a random loopback port, protected with a random Basic-auth password) and talks to it over HTTP + SSE, which streams the answer token by token and supports cancellation. The server is configured in-memory (MIMOCODE_CONFIG_CONTENT) with a single tools-free agent, so mimocode acts as a plain transport: file edits, terminal commands and tool calls stay on the Copilot Chat side. Your mimocode.jsonc is never modified. The server shuts down after 10 minutes of inactivity, and each request uses a throwaway session.

Installation

From the VS Code Marketplace (recommended)

• In VS Code, open the Extensions view (Cmd+Shift+X / Ctrl+Shift+X), search for AI Free VSCode, and click Install.
• Or from the command line:

  code --install-extension AppsGanin.free-ai-vscode
  

• Or open it directly on the Marketplace page.

From a VSIX (manual)

1. Download the latest free-ai-vscode-*.vsix from the Releases page.
2. In VS Code, open Extensions → ··· → Install from VSIX....
3. Reload VS Code.

Quick start

1. Open Command Palette (Cmd+Shift+P / Ctrl+Shift+P).
2. Run the sign-in command:
   • AI Free VSCode — Sign In
3. Choose a provider from the list (see Supported models).
4. Sign in with your browser and wait for success. MiMo Code (CLI) has no sign-in: if the CLI is missing, a terminal opens to install it, then run AI Free VSCode — Status.
5. Open Copilot Chat and select a model.

To sign out:

• AI Free VSCode — Sign Out

To check auth status:

• AI Free VSCode — Status

Editor features

Besides Copilot Chat, the extension adds a few editor integrations powered by the same free models. All of them respect your sign-in state and use thinking off for speed.

Commit message generation

A ✨ button in the Source Control view title bar generates a commit message from your staged diff (falls back to the working-tree diff). The message streams straight into the commit input box.

• Model: freeAI.commit.model (auto = first available)
• Prompt: freeAI.commit.prompt (Conventional Commits, English by default)
• Pick a model quickly: command AI Free VSCode — Change Commit Model

Every model declares which features it is fit for — chat, commit, suggestions, fix — and each picker lists only the fit ones. MiMo Auto opts out of commits and inline suggestions (its reasoning cannot be turned off, so it spends the whole request thinking), and Kimi opts out of chat. The flags are independent: commit, suggestions and Quick Fix talk to the providers directly, so a model hidden from chat still works for them.

Inline suggestions (ghost text)

On-demand code completion at the cursor. It is manual only — it never fires while typing.

• Trigger: Ctrl+Alt+\ (Mac Cmd+Alt+\), or command AI Free VSCode — Suggest Code at Cursor, or the built-in Trigger Inline Suggestion
• Accept with Tab, dismiss with Esc
• Enable first: set freeAI.suggestions.enabled to true (the hotkey will offer to enable it)
• Model: freeAI.suggestions.model (auto = first available)
• Pick a model quickly: command AI Free VSCode — Change Completions Model

While a suggestion is being generated the status bar shows AI Free: suggesting…; if nothing usable comes back it briefly says so instead of failing silently. Generation stops on its own after 30 seconds, 12 lines or 600 characters — whichever comes first — and whatever arrived by then is offered as the suggestion.

These backends run through a web session (DeepSeek also solves a PoW challenge), so expect noticeably higher latency than native Copilot. If Copilot itself is active, its suggestion usually wins the race and you see that one instead.

Fix with AI (Quick Fix)

When there is a red error or yellow warning, open the lightbulb (Cmd+. / Ctrl+.) and choose ✨ Fix with AI Free. The model rewrites the affected lines (indentation is preserved) and shows a diff preview with Apply / Cancel before changing the file.

• Toggle the action: freeAI.fix.enabled
• Model: freeAI.fix.model (auto = first available)
• Pick a model quickly: command AI Free VSCode — Change Fix Model

Configuration

Thinking (reasoning) is automatic: enabled in plain chat, disabled when tools are active (reasoning is unreliable with tool calling on these backends).

Development

git clone https://github.com/AppsGanin/ai-free-vscode
cd ai-free-vscode
npm install
# If you need local Chromium for development:
npx playwright install chromium

Run the extension in VS Code with F5.

Enabling/disabling providers at build time

Each provider can be excluded from a build via a PROVIDER_<NAME>=false environment variable (accepted falsy values: false, 0, off, no). By default all providers are included. The build prints the active set, e.g. [build] enabled providers: deepseek, kimi.

# Build without Qwen
PROVIDER_QWEN=false npm run bundle

# Build with only DeepSeek (drop Qwen, Kimi and MiMo)
PROVIDER_QWEN=false PROVIDER_KIMI=false PROVIDER_MIMO=false npm run bundle

# Package a VSIX without Qwen
PROVIDER_QWEN=false npm run bundle && npm run package

Provider keys: qwen, deepseek, kimi, mimo. Adding a new provider means registering its key in src/providers/providerConfig.ts, esbuild.js, and the factory map in src/extension.ts.

Requirements

• VS Code ^1.105.0
• System Chrome or network access for Playwright to download Chromium
• For the MiMo provider only: the MiMo Code CLI (npm i -g @mimo-ai/cli) and Node.js 18+

Important notice

This is an unofficial extension. Authentication is handled through a browser session, and the integration may break if providers change their web APIs or terms.

Use at your own risk. Web session automation may violate provider policies.

💝 Support the project

AI Free VSCode is built in spare time and distributed for free. If the extension has been useful, you can support its development.

The easiest way is via DonationAlerts or Boosty (one-time or recurring). You can also donate in USDT — pick a network and carefully copy the address (the sender's and recipient's networks must match):

If you also use Bybit, the simplest option is a transfer by UID (instant and fee-free):

The cheapest fees are on the TRON (TRC20) and TON networks. Send only USDT and only on the specified network — a transfer on the wrong network is unrecoverable.

Thanks for your support! 🙏