Getting started
What you need
Section titled “What you need”- Windows, with OpenSSH. It is built into Windows 10 and 11.
- A RunPod account with some balance. offrig uses RunPod’s secure cloud.
- Zed, if you want the pod’s models in an editor. The CLI and the side-car work without it.
Install
Section titled “Install”-
Download
offrig-<version>-windows-x64.zipfrom the Releases page. -
Check it against the release’s
SHA256SUMS:Terminal window Get-FileHash .\offrig-<version>-windows-x64.zip -Algorithm SHA256 -
Unzip it somewhere on your
PATH, for example%USERPROFILE%\.local\bin. It holds three programs:offrig.exe, the CLI;offrig-app.exe, the desktop app;offrig-mcp.exe, the side-car for agents.
To build from source instead, clone the repository and run cargo build --release. The
compiler version is pinned in rust-toolchain.toml.
Connect it to RunPod
Section titled “Connect it to RunPod”-
Create an API key in RunPod’s console. Put it in the user environment variable
RUNPOD_API_KEY. offrig reads it from there and never writes it anywhere.Terminal window setx RUNPOD_API_KEY "<your key>"Open a new terminal afterwards so the variable is visible.
-
Add your SSH public key in RunPod’s account settings. offrig uses
~/.ssh/runpod_rustlineif it exists, then~/.ssh/id_ed25519.
Check it works. This costs nothing:
offrig statusoffrig gpus --count 1status prints your balance, current spend and runway, then every pod on the account,
each marked offrig, lane or other. gpus lists live offers for a GPU count, with
price and stock.
Your first pod
Section titled “Your first pod”The small tier is the cheapest way to see the whole loop: one small card running
qwen3:4b, at about $0.25 an hour.
offrig up smalloffrig shows the cheapest free match and your runway with the pod running, then:
- creates the pod and waits for SSH;
- pulls the profile’s models on the pod;
- opens the tunnel on
127.0.0.1:11435; - adds the pod’s models to Zed as their own
offrigprovider; - runs the seven guard checks.
It then holds the tunnel until you stop it. In Zed, the models appear in the agent panel
as “RunPod · …”. Restart Zed once after the first launch so it sees OFFRIG_API_KEY.
When you’re done:
offrig down small --yesThe pod is terminated and billing stops. Its disk goes with it.
- To launch from a window instead, see App and CLI.
- To let an agent rent GPUs within a budget, see The side-car.
