Free Claude Code & Codex: official free tiers vs. relay stations

Two ways to run Claude Code / Codex without paying per token:

1. Official free tiers — limited, but zero setup. Good for light use.

2. Relay stations — third-party gateways that mirror the API and hand out signup + daily check-in credit. More headroom, tiny bit of config.

Relay setup is two env vars (Claude Code, AgentRouter as example):

export ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL="https://agentrouter.org"
export ANTHROPIC_AUTH_TOKEN="sk-****your-key****"
claude

For Codex, point ~/.codex/config.toml at https://<station>/v1 with an OpenAI-compatible provider.

Notes: Anthropic endpoint has no /v1; OpenAI endpoint ends with /v1; keep the key in an env var. Copy the exact model id from the station.

These stations are free and plentiful — register a few and rotate. List with models + tested dates: AI relay station list

Signup links carry my referral param; strip ?aff= if you prefer.