Union Alpha

Union Alpha can be connected to an agent for free and tried via API. No weights for offline use were found as of the review date, and the free preview does not promise uninterrupted access.

Good for a first try. You want to fix a small bug and can check the result yourself: the form saves a record, the filter excludes outdated data. Zero cost lets you get to know the model with an example like this.

Not suitable as your only model on a deadline. You need to finish today and cannot wait for available capacity. On 17 September, OpenRouter acknowledged outages and promised to expand access; as of the review date, it remains a promise.

To try it, start with the connection, then repeat a small familiar workflow. If you are choosing a model for ongoing work, first read the access terms and what is known about the data.

Cover generator. On 16 September, the author of the Income stream surfers channel showed building ThumbForge with Union Alpha in OpenCode. The app was meant to accept a video title and produce a cover. At first, it opened with a user error and did not generate an image.

After fixing the user state, the author showed a finished cover, but Stripe payments remained a placeholder. The image itself was created by a separate Gemini model; Union Alpha wrote the app that calls it in this test. The video has no complete work log.

Calculation error. On 17 September, Fahd Mirza gave Union Alpha a task through Hermes Agent: an educational app was meant to calculate a metric for the last seven days, but included older history. In the recording, the number changes after the fix, and a new entry updates the result again; the author noted that the model succeeded, though it worked slowly.

How to accept a result. Check whether the number makes sense, not just whether the button worked. On vibecoding.ru, on 5 September, we caught a similar bug: a daily counter used a truncated selection of recent events. The fix was backed by checks of both time and the calculation itself.

In the live site build, we show how we give agents such tasks, verify results, and ship fixes.

Where the trial stopped. Fahd Mirza's next task, analyzing a scientific chart, received no answer. The author reported a request limit and about an hour of waiting. This does not prove the model cannot read charts, but shows how service availability can halt work before quality is tested.

In chat. To get acquainted, open the Union Alpha page with the “Website” button and go to Chat. Sign-in with an OpenRouter account and access to the model itself are checked there. You do not need to install a local app for this introduction.

In OpenCode. Create a key on the API Keys page in OpenRouter, then enter /connect in OpenCode, select OpenRouter, and paste the key. Open /models and find Union Alpha. If the new model is not yet listed in your client version, add it in the provider settings using its exact name.

Through the API. Send a request to the Chat Completions endpoint, passing the key in the Authorization: Bearer … header and the exact ID in the model field. Having a key does not itself guarantee available provider capacity. Test a short request first, then connect a long task.

If you need tools. Tool-call support means the model can ask an application to perform an action. It does not gain access to your computer from an API key alone. The files, commands, and permissions are defined in the agent.

From Russia. We did not verify a working request to Union Alpha from a Russian connection. Successfully opening the OpenRouter page in our browser does not confirm that the model is available to a Russian account.

90.9% on GPQA Diamond. This figure appears in the AutoExacto block on Union Alpha's OpenRouter page as of 17 September. It is a multiple-choice science-question test run by OpenRouter itself. It does not measure the share of programmer tasks completed correctly.

Why you cannot place just any score beside it. The AutoExacto methodology describes its own run parameters and answer-choice shuffling. So you cannot simply subtract a number from another platform from 90.9% and declare a winner. The auto-routing label refers to OpenRouter's measurement method and does not reveal how Union Alpha works.

What is still missing. These sources do not provide a shared run of Union Alpha, Astra, and Fable 5.1 on the same tasks. It is more useful to repeat a scenario you know and compare the number of fixes and time to an accepted result.

The model bill. On 17 September 2026, OpenRouter lists $0 for Union Alpha input and $0 for output. This is a free preview. Its end date is not stated, and stealth-model terms allow access to end without prior notice.

Free does not mean no queue. OpenRouter's general documentation describes quotas for models ending in :free in their ID; Union Alpha is available under another name. Its exact request limit as of the review date is unknown. On a first try, a queue or service refusal may stop work before the free tokens run out.

A fully free app is not promised. In the ThumbForge video, the author separately bought credits for another model during setup. Zero-cost Union Alpha does not make image generation, hosting, or payment services free. Before trying it, separate the cost of writing code from the costs of the app it runs.

Developer undisclosed. OpenRouter explicitly distinguishes itself from Union Alpha: the platform routes requests to a third-party provider that remains anonymous during the preview. The lab name, model architecture, and parameter count are not published in the verified primary sources.

Hypotheses about its origins. Discussions try to identify the model from its answers and the behavior of image uploaders. These observations confirm neither the developer nor a composite system of several models.

What to give it. An open example or a small project without confidential data is suitable for getting acquainted. If the task requires a known recipient, a specific storage country, or an agreement with the developer, the available information about Union Alpha is insufficient.

Result verification. Valid JSON does not mean the data inside it is correct. Likewise, a working page does not prove that registration and payment work. Choose a check that matches the promised result, as in the two trials above.

Union Alpha or Astra. Union Alpha has a clear reason to start: try a model for coding without paying for its tokens. With GPT-6 Astra, the developer is known and ways to work in ChatGPT and Codex are covered. This is a difference in selection terms; our sources provide no evidence that Union Alpha is better than Astra.

Cloud access or your own weights. The free Union Alpha API still sends requests externally. DeepSeek published R1 weights for self-hosting; this is a different way of working, with its own computer requirements. Free access and self-hosting answer different questions.

How to compare without guessing. Take one small bug and the same source files, writing down in advance what must change and what must keep working. Count the time to a verified result, including manual fixes. A big name and the price of one token do not replace that number.