Aider's classic free-model flags point at IDs that no longer exist

Aider guides converge on the same invocation — OpenRouter, :free models, architect mode:

aider --model openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-r1:free       --editor-model openrouter/meta-llama/llama-3.3-70b-instruct:free

Both of those IDs are gone from OpenRouter's catalog, along with the rest of the tutorial-era free set. Aider fails with a provider error that looks like a config mistake rather than a retirement.

The current fix is the same shape with living models — check what exists first (curl -s https://openrouter.ai/api/v1/models | grep ':free'), then, today, something like z-ai/glm-5.2:free as architect and a Nemotron as editor. Or sidestep OpenRouter and point aider at Groq's free tier (--model groq/openai/gpt-oss-120b), which is faster for the edit loop anyway.

A working $0 aider setup, kept in sync with the catalogs: https://toolfreebie.com/aider-free-ai-coding-cli/