---
summary: "Use Qwen Cloud through its OpenClaw plugin"
read_when:
  - You want to use Qwen with OpenClaw
  - You previously used Qwen OAuth
title: "Qwen"
---

Qwen Cloud is an official external OpenClaw provider plugin with canonical id `qwen`. It targets Qwen Cloud / Alibaba DashScope Standard and Coding Plan endpoints, keeps legacy `modelstudio` ids working as a compatibility alias, and exposes the Qwen Portal token flow as a separate provider, [`qwen-oauth`](/providers/qwen-oauth).

| Property               | Value                                      |
| ---------------------- | ------------------------------------------ |
| Provider               | `qwen`                                     |
| Portal provider        | [`qwen-oauth`](/providers/qwen-oauth)      |
| Preferred env var      | `QWEN_API_KEY`                             |
| Also accepted (compat) | `MODELSTUDIO_API_KEY`, `DASHSCOPE_API_KEY` |
| API style              | OpenAI-compatible                          |

<Tip>
For `qwen3.6-plus`, use a **Standard (pay-as-you-go)** endpoint. It is not available on the Coding Plan endpoints.
</Tip>

## Install plugin

`qwen` ships as an official external plugin, not bundled with core. Install it and restart Gateway:

```bash
openclaw plugins install @openclaw/qwen-provider
openclaw gateway restart
```

## Getting started

Choose your plan type and follow the setup steps.

<Tabs>
  <Tab title="Coding Plan (subscription)">
    **Best for:** subscription-based access through the Qwen Coding Plan.

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Get your API key">
        Create or copy an API key from [home.qwencloud.com/api-keys](https://home.qwencloud.com/api-keys).
      </Step>
      <Step title="Run onboarding">
        For the **Global** endpoint:

        ```bash
        openclaw onboard --auth-choice qwen-api-key
        ```

        For the **China** endpoint:

        ```bash
        openclaw onboard --auth-choice qwen-api-key-cn
        ```
      </Step>
      <Step title="Set a default model">
        ```json5
        {
          agents: {
            defaults: {
              model: { primary: "qwen/qwen3.5-plus" },
            },
          },
        }
        ```
      </Step>
      <Step title="Verify the model is available">
        ```bash
        openclaw models list --provider qwen
        ```
      </Step>
    </Steps>

    <Note>
    Legacy `modelstudio-*` auth-choice ids and `modelstudio/...` model refs still
    work as compatibility aliases, but new setup flows should prefer the canonical
    `qwen-*` auth-choice ids and `qwen/...` model refs. If you define an exact
    custom `models.providers.modelstudio` entry with another `api` value, that
    custom provider owns `modelstudio/...` refs instead of the Qwen compatibility
    alias.
    </Note>

  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Standard (pay-as-you-go)">
    **Best for:** pay-as-you-go access through the Standard Model Studio endpoint, including models like `qwen3.6-plus` that are not available on the Coding Plan.

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Get your API key">
        Create or copy an API key from [home.qwencloud.com/api-keys](https://home.qwencloud.com/api-keys).
      </Step>
      <Step title="Run onboarding">
        For the **Global** endpoint:

        ```bash
        openclaw onboard --auth-choice qwen-standard-api-key
        ```

        For the **China** endpoint:

        ```bash
        openclaw onboard --auth-choice qwen-standard-api-key-cn
        ```
      </Step>
      <Step title="Set a default model">
        ```json5
        {
          agents: {
            defaults: {
              model: { primary: "qwen/qwen3.5-plus" },
            },
          },
        }
        ```
      </Step>
      <Step title="Verify the model is available">
        ```bash
        openclaw models list --provider qwen
        ```
      </Step>
    </Steps>

    <Note>
    Legacy `modelstudio-*` auth-choice ids and `modelstudio/...` model refs still
    work as compatibility aliases, but new setup flows should prefer the canonical
    `qwen-*` auth-choice ids and `qwen/...` model refs. If you define an exact
    custom `models.providers.modelstudio` entry with another `api` value, that
    custom provider owns `modelstudio/...` refs instead of the Qwen compatibility
    alias.
    </Note>

  </Tab>

  <Tab title="Qwen OAuth / Portal">
    **Best for:** a Qwen Portal token against `https://portal.qwen.ai/v1`.

    See [Qwen OAuth / Portal](/providers/qwen-oauth) for the dedicated provider
    page and migration notes.

    <Steps>
      <Step title="Provide your portal token">
        ```bash
        openclaw onboard --auth-choice qwen-oauth
        ```
      </Step>
      <Step title="Set a default model">
        ```json5
        {
          agents: {
            defaults: {
              model: { primary: "qwen-oauth/qwen3.5-plus" },
            },
          },
        }
        ```
      </Step>
      <Step title="Verify the model is available">
        ```bash
        openclaw models list --provider qwen-oauth
        ```
      </Step>
    </Steps>

    <Note>
    `qwen-oauth` uses the same `QWEN_API_KEY` env var name as the Qwen Cloud
    provider, but stores auth under the `qwen-oauth` provider id when configured
    through OpenClaw onboarding.
    </Note>

  </Tab>
</Tabs>

## Plan types and endpoints

| Plan                       | Region | Auth choice                | Endpoint                                         |
| -------------------------- | ------ | -------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ |
| Coding Plan (subscription) | China  | `qwen-api-key-cn`          | `coding.dashscope.aliyuncs.com/v1`               |
| Coding Plan (subscription) | Global | `qwen-api-key`             | `coding-intl.dashscope.aliyuncs.com/v1`          |
| Qwen Portal                | Global | `qwen-oauth`               | `portal.qwen.ai/v1`                              |
| Standard (pay-as-you-go)   | China  | `qwen-standard-api-key-cn` | `dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1`      |
| Standard (pay-as-you-go)   | Global | `qwen-standard-api-key`    | `dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1` |

The provider auto-selects the endpoint based on your auth choice. Canonical
choices use the `qwen-*` family; `modelstudio-*` remains compatibility-only.
Override with a custom `baseUrl` in config.

<Tip>
**Manage keys:** [home.qwencloud.com/api-keys](https://home.qwencloud.com/api-keys) |
**Docs:** [docs.qwencloud.com](https://docs.qwencloud.com/developer-guides/getting-started/introduction)
</Tip>

## Built-in catalog

OpenClaw ships this Qwen static catalog. The catalog is endpoint-aware: Coding
Plan configs omit models that only work on the Standard endpoint.

| Model ref                   | Input       | Context   | Notes                   |
| --------------------------- | ----------- | --------- | ----------------------- |
| `qwen/qwen3.5-plus`         | text, image | 1,000,000 | Default model           |
| `qwen/qwen3.6-plus`         | text, image | 1,000,000 | Standard endpoints only |
| `qwen/qwen3-max-2026-01-23` | text        | 262,144   | Qwen Max line           |
| `qwen/qwen3-coder-next`     | text        | 262,144   | Coding                  |
| `qwen/qwen3-coder-plus`     | text        | 1,000,000 | Coding                  |
| `qwen/MiniMax-M2.5`         | text        | 1,000,000 | Reasoning enabled       |
| `qwen/glm-5`                | text        | 202,752   | GLM                     |
| `qwen/glm-4.7`              | text        | 202,752   | GLM                     |
| `qwen/kimi-k2.5`            | text, image | 262,144   | Moonshot AI via Alibaba |
| `qwen-oauth/qwen3.5-plus`   | text, image | 1,000,000 | Qwen Portal default     |

<Note>
Availability can still vary by endpoint and billing plan even when a model is
present in the static catalog.
</Note>

## Thinking controls

`qwen/MiniMax-M2.5` is the only reasoning-enabled model in the built-in
catalog. For reasoning models on the `qwen` family, the provider maps
OpenClaw thinking levels to DashScope's top-level `enable_thinking` request
flag: disabled thinking sends `enable_thinking: false`, any other level sends
`enable_thinking: true`. Custom models can opt into an alternate chat-template
thinking payload by setting `compat.thinkingFormat: "qwen-chat-template"` on
the model entry.

## Multimodal add-ons

The `qwen` plugin exposes multimodal capabilities on the **Standard** DashScope
endpoints only, not the Coding Plan endpoints:

- **Image and video understanding** via `qwen-vl-max-latest`
- **Wan video generation** via `wan2.6-t2v` (default), `wan2.6-i2v`, `wan2.6-r2v`, `wan2.6-r2v-flash`, `wan2.7-r2v`

Media understanding is auto-resolved from the configured Qwen auth; no extra
config is needed. Make sure you are on a Standard (pay-as-you-go) endpoint for
media understanding to work.

To make Qwen the default video provider:

```json5
{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      videoGenerationModel: { primary: "qwen/wan2.6-t2v" },
    },
  },
}
```

Video-generation limits: 1 output video per request, up to 1 input image
(image-to-video), up to 4 input videos (video-to-video), max 10 seconds
duration. Supports `size`, `aspectRatio`, `resolution`, `audio`, and
`watermark`. Reference image/video inputs require remote http(s) URLs; local
file paths are rejected up front because the DashScope video endpoint does not
accept uploaded local buffers for those references.

<Note>
See [Video generation](/tools/video-generation) for shared tool parameters, provider selection, and failover behavior.
</Note>

## Advanced configuration

<AccordionGroup>
  <Accordion title="Qwen 3.6 Plus availability">
    `qwen3.6-plus` is available on the Standard (pay-as-you-go) endpoints:

    - China: `dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1`
    - Global: `dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1`

    If the Coding Plan endpoints return an "unsupported model" error for
    `qwen3.6-plus`, switch to Standard (pay-as-you-go) instead of the Coding Plan
    endpoint/key pair.

    OpenClaw's Qwen static catalog does not advertise `qwen3.6-plus` on Coding
    Plan endpoints, but an explicitly configured `qwen/qwen3.6-plus` entry under
    `models.providers.qwen.models` is honored on Coding Plan base URLs, so you
    can opt that model in if Aliyun enables it on your subscription. The
    upstream API still decides whether the call succeeds.

  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Video generation region routing">
    OpenClaw maps the configured Qwen region to the matching DashScope AIGC host
    before submitting a video job:

    - Global/Intl: `https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com`
    - China: `https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com`

    A normal `models.providers.qwen.baseUrl` pointing at either the Coding Plan
    or Standard Qwen hosts still routes video generation to the matching
    regional DashScope video endpoint.

  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Streaming usage compatibility">
    Native Qwen endpoints advertise streaming usage compatibility on the shared
    `openai-completions` transport, so DashScope-compatible custom provider ids
    targeting the same native hosts inherit the same behavior without requiring
    the built-in `qwen` provider id specifically. This applies to both Coding
    Plan and Standard endpoints:

    - `https://coding.dashscope.aliyuncs.com/v1`
    - `https://coding-intl.dashscope.aliyuncs.com/v1`
    - `https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1`
    - `https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1`

  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Capability plan">
    The `qwen` plugin is being positioned as the vendor home for the full Qwen
    Cloud surface, not just coding/text models.

    - **Text/chat models:** available through the plugin
    - **Tool calling, structured output, thinking:** inherited from the OpenAI-compatible transport
    - **Image generation:** planned at the provider-plugin layer
    - **Image/video understanding:** available through the plugin on the Standard endpoint
    - **Speech/audio:** planned at the provider-plugin layer
    - **Memory embeddings/reranking:** planned through the embedding adapter surface
    - **Video generation:** available through the plugin through the shared video-generation capability

  </Accordion>

  <Accordion title="Environment and daemon setup">
    If the Gateway runs as a daemon (launchd/systemd), make sure `QWEN_API_KEY` is
    available to that process (for example, in `~/.openclaw/.env` or via
    `env.shellEnv`).
  </Accordion>
</AccordionGroup>

## Related

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Model selection" href="/concepts/model-providers" icon="layers">
    Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Video generation" href="/tools/video-generation" icon="video">
    Shared video tool parameters and provider selection.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Alibaba Model Studio" href="/providers/alibaba" icon="cloud">
    Bundled Wan video generation provider on the same DashScope platform.
  </Card>
  <Card title="Troubleshooting" href="/help/troubleshooting" icon="wrench">
    General troubleshooting and FAQ.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>
