Agent setup: If your agent doesn't auto-load skills (e.g. Claude Code), see agent-compatibility.md once per session.

Qwen Model Selector (Advisor)

This skill operates in two modes:

1. Interactive advisory — asks diagnostic questions to recommend the right model (see Diagnostic Flow).
2. Cross-skill resolution — provides a fast-path model lookup for execution skills that need a model decision without user interaction (see recommendation-matrix.md).

Do not fabricate model names — only recommend models listed in this skill or returned by CLI. This skill is part of qwencloud/qwencloud-ai.

Skill directory

Load on demand. Do not fetch external URLs unless the user explicitly asks for the latest data.

Prerequisites

QwenCloud CLI is strongly recommended — it is the authoritative real-time data source for model availability, pricing, and quotas. Verify with:

qwencloud version

If not installed:

npm install -g @qwencloud/qwencloud-cli

Node.js >= 18 required. Without CLI you can still answer general navigation questions from offline snapshots, but you cannot answer "latest", "exact price", or "specific model details" questions.

Security & Credential Model

QwenCloud has two independent credential systems — never confuse them:

Red lines (apply to both):

• NEVER output any credential value in plaintext. Use variable references; report only status ("set" / "not set", "valid" / "invalid"). Never display .env or config file contents.
• NEVER conflate the two systems. When CLI returns Not authenticated / AUTH_REQUIRED, run the 3-step device-flow login (see cli-usage.md). DO NOT ask the user for an API key, and DO NOT try to set $DASHSCOPE_API_KEY to fix CLI auth.

Data Resolution Order

Match the user's question to the right data source. Do not fall back to a lower tier without trying the recovery actions in the higher tier first.

Diagnostic Flow (Interactive Advisory)

Ask the user (in order):

1. Content type? — text / image / video / audio / vision
2. Primary task? — generation / understanding / coding / reasoning / translation
3. Priority? — quality vs speed vs cost
4. Input size? — short / medium / long context
5. Structured output? — JSON / function calling needed?

Default Recommendations

No clear signals → use the canonical default for the domain. For specialized cases (reasoning, coding, OCR, role-play, image editing, etc.) and per-domain comparison, see recommendation-matrix.md.

Degradation: If this skill is not loaded, each execution skill falls back to its own built-in default. This protocol is purely additive — it enhances model selection but never blocks execution.

CLI Quick Reference

Auth required. All models and usage commands need an active CLI session (browser device-flow login — NOT the API key). If the command returns Not authenticated / AUTH_REQUIRED:

1. Run the 3-step device-flow login in cli-usage.md (proactively open the verification URL using the OS-appropriate command, then poll immediately).
2. Retry the original command after success.
3. DO NOT ask the user for $DASHSCOPE_API_KEY / $QWEN_API_KEY — those are for model API calls, not CLI session. See Security & Credential Model above.
4. DO NOT silently fall back to snapshots.

Display rules: Parse --format json output and present a human-readable summary; never dump raw JSON. Display --format text output as-is, then add analysis after ---. See cli-usage.md for details.

CLI Error Handling — Quick Guide

When CLI fails, classify first, recover, then retry. Never silently fall back to snapshots.

Full classification, signals, and example flows: error-handling.md.

Pricing & Cost Estimation

• Latest pricing: Run qwencloud models info <model> --format json first; use pricing.md only as offline fallback. Never invent a price.
• Mandatory disclaimer: Every cost-related answer must end with the disclaimer in pricing-disclaimer.md (Chinese or English version, matching the user's response language). Omitting the disclaimer is a critical failure.
• Free quota: Never assume free quota is available — use qwencloud usage free-tier to verify or direct the user to the console.
• Usage / billing queries: Direct the user to the appropriate console page — see the table in pricing-disclaimer.md.

Update Check

When the user asks to check for updates ("check for updates", "check version", "is there a new version", "update skills"):

1. Find qwencloud-update-check: Look for qwencloud-update-check/SKILL.md in sibling skill directories.
2. If found — run: python3 <qwencloud-update-check-dir>/scripts/check_update.py --print-response and report the result. Use --force if the user asks to force-check.
3. If not found — run qwencloud version --check and report the result.

Anti-Patterns

• Never fabricate model names — only recommend models listed in this skill or returned by CLI.
• Never invent or guess any price figure — use CLI / pricing.md / official pricing page only. Fabricating a price is a critical failure.
• Never silently fall back to snapshots when CLI errors out — apply error-handling.md recovery actions first.
• Never assume free quota is available — quotas may have been consumed, expired, or removed. Always present the paid unit price first.
• Never output API keys in plaintext — see Security section.
• Never confuse CLI session with API key — CLI auth uses browser device-flow login; never offer $DASHSCOPE_API_KEY or $QWEN_API_KEY as a fix for CLI Not authenticated / AUTH_REQUIRED errors.
• Never proactively fetch URLs or trigger web searches — only access online sources when CLI + snapshots cannot answer AND the user confirms.
• Never construct usage/billing/console URLs — only use the exact links listed in this skill or its references. If a URL is not listed, do not invent one.
• Always include the cost disclaimer for any cost-related answer (see pricing-disclaimer.md).

References