JetBrains dropped the price of a coding agent to zero, but it only runs a 27B model

JetBrains has tucked a free model called Junie Lite into Junie CLI. No trial, no credit card, install it and go, and it runs directly on your real repo, not a demo sandbox.

The work it handles is very specific: renaming across all files that reference a function, writing changelogs based on commit history, scaffolding tests for new modules, and updating docs after config changes. All the tedious stuff every repo has to deal with.

Setup takes about five minutes. Install the CLI from junie.jetbrains.com, log in with your JetBrains account, and describe the task in plain language. It produces code, you review it, and if it passes, you move on.

The first official testing suggestion is pretty practical: have it draft a changelog from the commits since the last tag, then read the diff and fix what it got wrong. That exercise alone will help you figure out where its limits are.

To be clear, Junie Lite currently runs qwen 27b, a small model. JetBrains' own guidance is to review its output like you would a junior colleague's work. Someone in the replies raised a concern: when renaming hits dynamic imports, it tends to miss one spot. So don't expect it to be perfect on the first pass.

A practical way to use it is to split the work: use a large model for planning and hand routine execution to Junie Lite. Planning is expensive, execution is cheap, and the math works out.

It runs in the terminal via Junie CLI and is also available in the JetBrains Air IDE.

The fact that it's free with no trial period may matter more to developers than the model's capabilities. As one commenter put it bluntly: free and no trial means low cost of trial and error, which is what makes people actually willing to try it.