Qwencloud Model Selector

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. Fetch the CDN recommendations first; if CDN access fails, use the local fallback.

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

🚫 CRITICAL — Never override a user-specified model. If the user (or the requesting execution skill) has already explicitly specified a model, this skill's job is done for that request: use the model as given. Do NOT recommend a "better suited" or newer model in its place, and do NOT add parameters (thinking mode, style hints) the user did not ask for. Recommendations and diagnostic flows below apply only when no model has been specified. You may verify availability and, if the model is unavailable/restricted, inform the user and suggest alternatives — but the user makes the final call.

Skill directory

Load on demand. Fetch the documented CDN model catalogs when model lists, defaults, or recommendations are needed. Do not fetch other external URLs unless the user explicitly asks for the latest data.

Every path under cdn/ is a local fallback, not the primary source. For cdn/<path>, first fetch https://alioth-intl.alicdn.com/skills-info/models/<path> and use the local file only if that request fails.

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 point-in-time navigation and model questions from the CDN catalogs, but you cannot verify current availability, exact current prices, or account quotas.

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.

Detecting Key Type

Before recommending models, detect the billing mode from the configured API key (outputs token-plan, payg, or not-set — never the key value itself):

python3 -c "
import os
from pathlib import Path
env_file = Path('.env')
if not env_file.exists():
    for parent in [Path.cwd()] + list(Path.cwd().parents):
        if (parent / '.git').exists() or (parent / 'skills').is_dir():
            env_file = parent / '.env'
            break
if env_file.exists():
    for line in env_file.read_text().splitlines():
        line = line.strip()
        if not line or line.startswith('#') or '=' not in line:
            continue
        k, v = line.split('=', 1)
        k, v = k.strip(), v.strip().strip('\"').strip(\"'\")
        if k in ('QWEN_API_KEY', 'DASHSCOPE_API_KEY') and k not in os.environ:
            os.environ[k] = v
key = os.environ.get('QWEN_API_KEY') or os.environ.get('DASHSCOPE_API_KEY') or ''
print('token-plan' if key.startswith('sk-sp-') else 'payg' if key else 'not-set')
"

Windows: If python3 is not available, use python. Alternatively, save the snippet to a temporary .py file and run it.

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.