Paywall required to start using Aider, /models shows outdated models, /settings lost on exit

[tgrushka]

Issue

Legally blind software engineer with 30 years experience. Aider looks great, but setup process presents major barriers:

1. Requires upfront payment to OpenRouter to get prompt.

• Cannot list models or see a prompt without paying first.
• Locks out users with other service accounts (e.g., OpenCode Zen).
• Must fund account and complete OAuth before any evaluation.

2. Built-in model discovery shows wrong information.

• /models free listed model openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-r1:free.
• That model does not exist. Correct model is deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528:free.
• Errors are unhelpful. Had to use curl on OpenRouter API to debug.

3. No way to save configuration from a session.

• Commands like /model only change settings temporarily.
• /help how do I save settings? generates instruction to "manually transcribe" settings to YAML.
• /settings output is a dense, non-YAML dump of 150+ lines.

Specific Requests:

Enable evaluation without upfront payment

1. Allow user to enter prompt without oauth.
2. Default to a free model; paid models must be explicitly chosen.

Make configuration accurate and discoverable

3. Clarify roles of /model and /weak-model.
4. Ensure /models list is accurate; errors should guide troubleshooting.
5. Provide offline, context-sensitive /help, e.g. /help settings or /help /settings.

Provide a path to save and reuse settings

6. Add a /settings save command to update YAML config from transient settings.

• Example: Can change /model in prompt, but no way to persist on exit. Have to edit a YAML by hand and guess correct keys from limited config docs. Not fun.

Version and model info

Aider v0.86.1
Main model: openrouter/deepseek/deepseek-r1-0528:free with diff edit format
Weak model: openrouter/x-ai/grok-4-fast:free