Anthropic and Claude are struggling, and OpenAI and it's master SamA are still the center of intrigue. That means there is no better time to explore alternatives. I've been playing around with OpenCode and the result has been great.

OpenCode is an open source and available-for-free CLI tool that offers a similar experience to Claude Code. Except that it:

  • Actually shows you tokens, usage, spend
  • Has a UI for things like todo lists, LSPs and more
  • Connects to several models that, while in trial mode, are free to use
  • Does not sponsor the big evil corporates ;-) yet

It seems like the free as in beer power tools like Claude Code and Codex are (slowly?) moving behind closed doors. Your lessons learned should sit with your projects, in AGENTS.md or similar files. In fact, the best tip I can give you, is my default CLAUDE.md:

Read AGENTS.md