Qwen Cloud is an official external Apus provider plugin with canonical id qwen. It targets Qwen Cloud / Alibaba DashScope Standard and Coding Plan endpoints, exposes Token Plan as qwen-token-plan, keeps modelstudio as a compatibility alias, and independently owns Alibaba's documented bailian-token-plan custom-provider id.

Install plugin

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

apus plugins install @openclaw/qwen-provider

Installation applies to a running Gateway automatically; otherwise it takes effect on the next startup. See Apply changes and inspect.

Getting started

Choose your plan type and follow the setup steps.

**Best for:** subscription-based access through the Qwen Coding Plan.

    Create or copy an API key from [home.qwencloud.com/api-keys](https://home.qwencloud.com/api-keys).

    For the **Global** endpoint:

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

    For the **China** endpoint:

    ```bash
    apus onboard --auth-choice qwen-api-key-cn
    ```

    ```json5
    {
      agents: {
        defaults: {
          model: { primary: "qwen/qwen3.5-plus" },
        },
      },
    }
    ```

    ```bash
    apus models list --provider qwen
    ```

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.

**Best for:** pay-as-you-go access through the Standard Model Studio endpoint, including `qwen3.8-max` and `qwen3.8-flash`, which are not available on the older Coding Plan.

    Create or copy an API key from [home.qwencloud.com/api-keys](https://home.qwencloud.com/api-keys).

    For the **Global** endpoint:

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

    For the **China** endpoint:

    ```bash
    apus onboard --auth-choice qwen-standard-api-key-cn
    ```

    ```json5
    {
      agents: {
        defaults: {
          model: { primary: "qwen/qwen3.5-plus" },
        },
      },
    }
    ```

    ```bash
    apus models list --provider qwen
    ```

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.

**Best for:** credit-based team subscription access to Qwen and supported third-party models through Alibaba Cloud Model Studio.

    Assign a Token Plan seat and create its dedicated `sk-sp-...` key. Token Plan, Coding Plan, and pay-as-you-go keys are not interchangeable. See the [Global Token Plan overview](https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/token-plan-overview) or [China Token Plan overview](https://help.aliyun.com/zh/model-studio/token-plan-overview).

    For the **Global / International** endpoint in Singapore:

    ```bash
    apus onboard --auth-choice qwen-token-plan
    ```

    For the **China** endpoint in Beijing:

    ```bash
    apus onboard --auth-choice qwen-token-plan-cn
    ```

    ```bash
    apus models list --provider qwen-token-plan
    apus agent --model qwen-token-plan/qwen3.7-plus --message "Reply with: token plan ready"
    ```

Alibaba's Apus guide uses `bailian-token-plan` for a manual custom
provider. The plugin registers that id as a compatibility owner, but new
configs should use `qwen-token-plan`. An exact custom
`models.providers.bailian-token-plan` entry keeps ownership of its configured
transport and catalog; it is never merged into the canonical OpenAI catalog.

Use Token Plan only for interactive Apus sessions. Do not select it for
cron jobs, unattended scripts, or application backends. Alibaba states that
non-interactive use can suspend the subscription or revoke its API key.

Retired Qwen Portal authentication

The qwen-oauth Portal provider and its legacy OAuth flow have been removed. Portal tokens are not interchangeable with Qwen Cloud or DashScope API keys. Using the current Qwen plugin requires fresh API-key authentication for the chosen endpoint and updated model configuration. Follow Install plugin and Getting started; existing Portal credentials are not converted automatically.

Plan types and endpoints

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.

Built-in catalog

Setup keeps connection settings and model aliases, including modelstudio aliases, without copying generated catalog rows into your config. Explicit models.mode: "replace" keeps catalog seeding enabled; custom model rows stay intact.

Apus discovers models from the configured endpoint's authenticated /models API. The plugin keeps the following seed metadata for offline discovery and for endpoints that return only model IDs. Coding Plan configs omit models that are not included in that plan; a Standard model listing does not establish Token Plan or Coding Plan access.

Token Plan catalog

Token Plan uses a separate exact-string allowlist. The built-in catalog shows Alibaba's currently recommended plan models and keeps the newer Qwen3-Coder compatibility tier selectable but hidden. Other allowlisted model IDs remain available as custom model refs. Image-generation-only plan models are not included here because they use different APIs.

Thinking controls

Agent runs and standalone completions use the same model-specific thinking controls, including Token Plan tool-choice and reasoning-replay requirements.

qwen3.8-max and qwen3.8-flash support off, low, medium, and xhigh thinking, with xhigh as the default. minimal maps to low; high and max map to xhigh. This applies to Standard and Token Plan. Both models support 131,072 output tokens. Apus preserves returned reasoning in its separate reasoning_content replay field during tool use, rather than placing it in visible answer text.

An explicit thinking_budget in request parameters takes precedence over the mapped reasoning_effort: Qwen rejects requests containing both. See the Qwen thinking reference.

qwen3.7-max, qwen3.7-plus, qwen3.6-flash, and qwen3.6-plus are reasoning-enabled in the built-in catalog. For reasoning models on the qwen family, the provider maps Apus 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.

Token Plan models are also marked reasoning-capable. kimi-k2.7-code and MiniMax-M2.5 are thinking-only, so Apus keeps thinking enabled even when the session requests /think off. DeepSeek V4 maps minimal through high to the service's high effort and maps xhigh or max to max. GLM 5.2 accepts the full minimal through max range; GLM 5.1 and GLM 5 accept through xhigh, and all three default to high. Other hybrid models follow the requested on/off state.

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 qwen3.6-plus
• 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.

Video generation

Use QWEN_API_KEY from a Standard endpoint. To make Qwen the default video provider:

{
  agents: {
    defaults: {
      mediaModels: { video: { primary: "qwen/wan2.6-t2v" } },
    },
  },
}

With exactly one reference image and no video, wan2.6-t2v automatically uses wan2.6-i2v; the result reports the resolved model. This routing applies only when a same-generation image-to-video sibling exists in the known model catalog. Other requests use the selected model's mode:

Wan 2.6 text/reference models translate resolution plus aspectRatio to the documented exact size. Wan 2.6 image-to-video sends the resolution tier and uses the input image's aspect ratio. Wan 2.7 reference-to-video sends media, resolution, and ratio and always generates audio.

Image-to-video and Wan 2.7 reference images accept local files or remote http(s) URLs. Local images are sent as base64 data URIs with a maximum of 20 MB per image before encoding, matching the Wan image input limit. Reference videos and Wan 2.6 reference-to-video images still require remote http(s) URLs.

Advanced configuration

`qwen3.7-plus` and `qwen3.6-plus` are available on Coding Plan and Standard endpoints. For `qwen3.8-max`, `qwen3.8-flash`, `qwen3.7-max`, or `qwen3.6-flash`, use Standard or Token Plan. The Standard (pay-as-you-go) endpoints are:

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

Apus omits these models from Coding Plan catalogs. If a Coding Plan
endpoint returns an "unsupported model" error, switch to the matching
Standard or Token Plan endpoint and its dedicated key.

Apus 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 Coding Plan,
Standard, and Token Plan 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`
- `https://token-plan.ap-southeast-1.maas.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1`
- `https://token-plan.cn-beijing.maas.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1`

Which parts of the Qwen Cloud surface the `qwen` plugin covers today:

- **Text/chat models:** available through the plugin
- **Tool calling, structured output, thinking:** inherited from the OpenAI-compatible transport
- **Image/video understanding:** available through the plugin on the Standard endpoint
- **Video generation:** available through the plugin through the shared video-generation capability
- **Image generation:** not exposed by the plugin
- **Speech/audio:** not exposed by the plugin
- **Memory embeddings/reranking:** not exposed by the plugin

If the Gateway runs as a daemon (launchd/systemd), make sure `QWEN_API_KEY`
or `QWEN_TOKEN_PLAN_API_KEY` is available to that process (for example, in
`~/.apus/.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.