Qwen Code

Agent ID: qwen

Qwen Code by Alibaba's Qwen team. Speaks ACP natively via qwen --acp --experimental-skills.

Install

npm install -g @qwen-code/qwen-code
qwen auth qwen-oauth
# or: export BAILIAN_CODING_PLAN_API_KEY="your-api-key"

Free tier: 100 requests/day via qwen auth qwen-oauth. For higher limits, set BAILIAN_CODING_PLAN_API_KEY with a Bailian API key.

Quick Start

import { agents } from "@pivanov/agents-wire";

const result = await agents.ask(
  "qwen",
  "Review src/auth.ts",
  {
    permission: "auto-allow",
  },
);

console.log(result.text);

Model Selection

Qwen Code supports multiple providers (BYOK). There is no qwen --list-models CLI flag; model selection is exposed via the in-session /model command. The static catalog shows a "Default" placeholder pre-init.

After creating a session, read session.configOptions to discover which models the running instance exposes:

import { createSession } from "@pivanov/agents-wire";

const session = await createSession("qwen");
const opts = session.configOptions ?? [];
const modelOpt = opts.find((o) => o.configId === "model" && o.type === "select");

if (modelOpt && modelOpt.type === "select") {
  console.log(modelOpt.options); // provider-specific model list
}

options.model and options.effort are sent via ACP setSessionConfigOption (best-effort).

Capabilities

Feature	Supported
ask / stream / session	✅
askJson	✅
MCP stdio	✅
MCP http/sse	❌
Session listing (listSessions)	❌
Tool call interception	✅

Cost Tracking

Cost reporting depends on the provider. The free OAuth tier does not report per-turn costUsd. BYOK providers (Bailian, etc.) may report costs. Check result.cost and session.cost.snapshot.totalUsd for what is available.

Auth Failure Detection

If qwen auth qwen-oauth has not been run or the API key is invalid, the SDK catches the authentication-failure pattern in stderr and throws AgentUnauthenticatedError.

Gotchas

• Run qwen auth qwen-oauth before first use, or set BAILIAN_CODING_PLAN_API_KEY.
• The --experimental-skills flag is required for tool execution. Without it, Qwen runs in chat-only mode. The agents-wire launch spec passes it automatically.
• Session listing is not supported; listSessions() throws CapabilityNotSupportedError.