How OpenRouter Unlocked Our Workshop Strategy
When my team launched Goose in early January 2025, we knew we had something special. We built a free, open source AI agent that leverages the Model Context Protocol. It was inventive in its approach, offering developers a local solution with the flexibility to bring their LLM of choice.
The LLM Cost Problem
After using the product internally for a few months, my teammates were eager to share Goose with the developer community through workshops and hackathons. We wanted to provide hands-on experiences where people could actually build with Goose, because that's how developers fall in love with a product.
But we hit a thorny challenge: while Goose is free, high-performing LLMs are not.