Snider 6d34cbe33c docs: add contributor onboarding for distributed compute network

Host UK CIC mission: aggregate free tier compute to benefit OSS commons

Added:
- CONTRIBUTING.md: 5-minute contributor onboarding guide
- scripts/contribute.sh: One-command setup for new contributors
- Updated free-tier-services.md: Mission context, economics explained

The model:
- 100 contributors × free tiers = enterprise-scale compute
- core monitor aggregates findings from all sources
- Tasks routed to Host UK packages AND unfunded OSS projects
- LLMs learned from OSS, we give back

Who pays: Microsoft, Google, Groq (marketing budgets)
Who benefits: Open source commons

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-01-31 22:44:17 +00:00

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Free Tier Services Integration

Host UK CIC is a UK Community Interest Company. Our assets are legally locked for community benefit - we can't extract value for shareholders. This page documents how we aggregate free compute to benefit the open source commons.

The Model

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    100 CONTRIBUTORS                              │
│                                                                  │
│   Each contributes their FREE tier allowances:                   │
│   • GitHub Actions: 2000 min/month                               │
│   • Gemini: 1500 req/day                                         │
│   • Groq: 14,400 req/day                                         │
│   • Copilot: Free for OSS                                        │
│                                                                  │
│   Total daily capacity:                                          │
│   • 150,000 Gemini requests                                      │
│   • 1,440,000 Groq requests                                      │
│   • 6,666 GitHub Actions hours                                   │
│   • Unlimited security scans                                     │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              │
                              ▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    core monitor                                  │
│                                                                  │
│   Aggregates findings → Creates tasks → Routes to agents         │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
                              │
              ┌───────────────┴───────────────┐
              ▼                               ▼
┌─────────────────────────┐   ┌─────────────────────────────────┐
│   HOST UK PACKAGES      │   │   UNFUNDED OSS PROJECTS         │
│                         │   │                                 │
│   Our tools, modules    │   │   Popular packages with no      │
│                         │   │   security budget - we find     │
│                         │   │   and fix vulns, submit PRs     │
└─────────────────────────┘   └─────────────────────────────────┘

The LLMs learned from open source. We're giving back.

AI/LLM APIs (Contributor Keys)

Service	Free Tier	Speed	Best For
Groq	14,400 req/day	⚡ Fastest	Quick triage, bulk analysis
Gemini 2.0	1500 req/day	Fast	Code review, deep analysis
Mistral	1M tokens/month	Fast	Code generation
Cohere	1000 req/month	Medium	Classification, embeddings
Cloudflare AI	10K neurons/day	Edge	Low latency
Together.ai	$5 credit	Fast	Multi-model
Fireworks.ai	600 req/min	⚡ Fast	High throughput
Cerebras	Free tier	⚡⚡ Fastest	Bulk inference

Setup (2 minutes)

# In your fork
gh secret set GEMINI_API_KEY   # https://aistudio.google.com/apikey
gh secret set GROQ_API_KEY     # https://console.groq.com/keys
gh secret set MISTRAL_API_KEY  # https://console.mistral.ai/

Security Scanners (No Keys Needed)

All free, unlimited, run automatically:

Scanner	Finds	Output
Semgrep	SAST vulns, code patterns	SARIF → GitHub Security
Trivy	Container vulns, IaC issues	SARIF → GitHub Security
Gitleaks	Leaked secrets, API keys	SARIF → GitHub Security
OSV-Scanner	Known CVEs (Google DB)	SARIF → GitHub Security
Checkov	IaC misconfigs	SARIF → GitHub Security
CodeQL	Deep semantic analysis	Native GitHub
Dependabot	Outdated deps	Native GitHub

Code Analysis Apps (Free for Public Repos)

Install these on your fork for extra coverage:

App	Install	Provides
Snyk	Install	Deps + code vulns
SonarCloud	Install	Code quality
CodeClimate	Install	Maintainability
DeepSource	Install	Autofix suggestions
Codacy	Install	Multi-language
Socket.dev	Install	Supply chain
GitGuardian	Install	Secret detection
Aikido	Install	Full security suite
Trunk.io	Install	Meta-linter (50+ tools)

AI Code Assistants (Free Tiers)

Service	Free Access	Trigger
Jules/Copilot	OSS maintainers, students	`@jules fix this bug`
Codeium	Free forever	IDE extension
Cody	Free tier	IDE extension
Amazon Q	Free tier	IDE/CLI
Continue.dev	Free, open source	IDE extension

CI/CD Free Tiers

Service	Free Allowance	Notes
GitHub Actions	2000 min/month	Per user, public repos
CircleCI	6000 min/month	Good for heavy builds
GitLab CI	400 min/month	Alternative to GH
Semaphore	1300 min/month	Fast builds
Buildkite	Free for OSS	Self-hosted option

Who Pays For All This?

Provider	Why Free?
Microsoft	GitHub market dominance, AI training data
Google	Gemini adoption, developer mindshare
Groq	Hardware showcase, market entry
Others	Developer ecosystem, future enterprise sales

They need OSS developers. We need compute. Fair trade.

Joining the Network

# Fork and setup (5 minutes)
gh repo fork host-uk/core-devops --clone
cd core-devops
./scripts/contribute.sh

Your unused free tier becomes part of a collective resource that:

Secures Host UK packages
Fixes vulnerabilities in unfunded OSS
Gives back to the projects that trained the AIs

Cost: $0. Impact: Massive.

Host UK CIC - Ethical infrastructure for the open source commons

7.2 KiB Raw Blame History