Get $150 in Free AI Credits and Use Codex Directly in VS Code

There is currently a promotional opportunity for developers to claim $150 in free AI credits and use them with agentic coding tools such as Codex.

Claim the free AI credit here: Get $150 Free AI Credit

Get the credit first

Open the link above and create your account.

• Sign up with GitHub when available
• Complete the required account verification
• Open your dashboard and check the promotional credit balance
• Create an API key from the dashboard
• Keep the API key private and never commit it to Git

The promotional amount and eligibility can change, so check the balance shown in your account after registration.

Connect it to Codex in VS Code for windows

Once the account and API key are ready, install the official Codex extension in VS Code.

Open:

VS Code → Extensions → search for Codex → Install

Then configure Codex to use the external provider.

Open by shortcut key windows + R and Search :

%USERPROFILE%\.codex\config.toml

A typical provider configuration looks like this:

model = "gpt-5.6-sol"
model_provider = "agentrouter"
model_reasoning_effort = "medium"

[model_providers.agentrouter]
name = "AgentRouter"
base_url = "https://agentrouter.org/v1"
wire_api = "responses"
experimental_bearer_token = "YOUR_AGENTROUTER_API_KEY"

[windows]
sandbox = "unelevated"

Replace YOUR_AGENTROUTER_API_KEY with your own key.

Save the file, then reload VS Code.

After that, Codex can route your coding requests through the configured provider instead of relying only on a directly billed OpenAI API account.

Why this is useful

For developers working on real projects, this can be useful for:

• Code generation and refactoring
• Debugging existing codebases
• Reviewing architecture and implementation decisions
• Writing tests
• Working across larger project files
• Switching between different AI coding providers when needed

The important part is not simply getting free credits. It is being able to connect those credits to an actual coding workflow inside VS Code.

You can also keep other providers configured and switch between them when your project requires a different model or account.

One practical point

Do not paste your API key into source code, GitHub repositories, screenshots, or public configuration files. Store it securely and rotate it if it is ever exposed.

Start here: Get the $150 Free AI Credit

For developers already using Codex, this is one of the more interesting ways to experiment with free AI coding capacity without immediately adding another recurring subscription.