adolf/docs/providers/qwen.md

summary, read_when, title

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

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

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

Install plugin

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

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

Getting started

Choose your plan type and follow the setup steps.

**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>

**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>

**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>

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.

**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)

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

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

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:

{
  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.

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

Advanced configuration

`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.

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.

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`

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

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`).

Related

Choosing providers, model refs, and failover behavior. Shared video tool parameters and provider selection. Bundled Wan video generation provider on the same DashScope platform. General troubleshooting and FAQ.