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Qwen Code Team Setup Checklist

Pick a paid sign-in route or a local model now that the free tier is gone, respect Coding Plan's ban on automated use, export telemetry as your audit trail, and test MCP limits before rollout.

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In this piece
Qwen Code−50 Strong negative

Roll out Qwen Code only after each engineer has a model route, Coding Plan keys are kept out of automation, and usage statistics are off. Export its OpenTelemetry events as the audit trail it otherwise lacks, and test MCP, proxy, and IDE setups on your network first. This checklist covers routes, limits, data, telemetry, integrations, and review.

When you need this

  • Engineers relied on the free Qwen OAuth tier, which ended on April 15, 2026.
  • A team wants to run Qwen Code on local models or Alibaba Cloud Model Studio and skip a vendor-backed seat plan.
  • Security asks what Qwen Code sends home and what record exists of what it ran.

Evaluation criteria

  1. Choose a route per engineer

    Which model route does each engineer use?

    Look forCoding Plan Pro costs US$50 a month per account for interactive use, and accounts may not be shared. Token Plan and pay-as-you-go Model Studio keys, third-party routes such as DeepSeek, Kimi, and OpenRouter, and local models through Ollama or vLLM are the other routes. The Lite plan closed to new subscriptions on March 20, 2026.

  2. Respect Coding Plan limits

    Will any use hit the caps or the ban on automation?

    Look forCoding Plan Pro allows up to 6,000 requests per 5 hours, 45,000 a week, and 90,000 a month, and a task uses 5 to 30 or more model calls. Its key may not run automated scripts or application backends, so headless runs and pipelines need a pay-as-you-go key.

  3. Turn off usage statistics

    What does Qwen Code send home?

    Look forUsage statistics are on by default for every auth method, including your own API key, and go to an Alibaba Cloud collection endpoint until you turn them off in settings. On Model Studio, Alibaba states it never trains on your data and stores data generated from model calls.

  4. Export telemetry as the audit trail

    What record exists of what the agent ran?

    Look forQwen Code documents no SSO, SCIM, or admin audit log. Its OpenTelemetry log events, such as qwen-code.user_prompt and qwen-code.tool_call, can go to your own backend; keep them with each engineer's identity.

  5. Test MCP, proxy, and IDE setups

    Does it work on your network and tools?

    Look forConnect every MCP server you need and test proxy settings against in-house model services. Test the IDE plugin against local models too. In March 2026 an IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1 user found the plugin kept trying cloud sign-in with Ollama configured, a bug a maintainer reported fixed in v0.17.1.

  6. Watch context and review changes

    Is context use under control, and does a person approve every change?

    Look forPractitioners report subagents starting at about 105,000 tokens and cache invalidation on small follow-ups in the VS Code add-on, so watch token use per task. Keep a human review on every change before merge.

Questions to ask vendors

  1. Which route does each engineer use, and who pays for it?
  2. Which runs are automated, and does every one of them use a pay-as-you-go key?
  3. Have we turned off usage statistics on every machine?
  4. Where do Qwen Code's OpenTelemetry events go, and who reviews them?
  5. Which MCP servers and IDEs have we tested on our network?

Red flags

  • A Coding Plan key in a CI pipeline or application backend.
  • One Coding Plan account shared across engineers.
  • Usage statistics left on by default.
  • No exported telemetry and no other record of what the agent ran.
  • A rollout that assumes the free Qwen OAuth tier still exists.

Products in this piece

Sources

Official documentation
7
Public source
5
  1. Alibaba Cloud Model Studio: Coding Plan overviewOfficial documentationalibabacloud.com
  2. Qwen Code docs: AuthenticationOfficial documentationqwenlm.github.io
  3. Qwen Code docs: Terms of service and privacy noticeOfficial documentationgithub.com
  4. Alibaba Cloud Model Studio: Privacy noticeOfficial documentationalibabacloud.com
  5. Qwen Code docs: TelemetryOfficial documentationgithub.com
  6. QwenLM/qwen-code on GitHub (README)Official documentationgithub.com
  7. Alibaba Cloud Model Studio: Qwen CodeOfficial documentationalibabacloud.com
  8. QwenLM/qwen-code issue #756: no_proxy ignored for a company's in-house Qwen3 service (Oct 2, 2025)Public sourcegithub.com
  9. QwenLM/qwen-code issue #2724: the IntelliJ IDEA 2026.1 plugin ignored local Ollama models until v0.17.1 (Mar 27, 2026)Public sourcegithub.com
  10. QwenLM/qwen-code issue #15660: subagents start with a 105,000-token prompt (Oct 26, 2026)Public sourcegithub.com
  11. r/LocalLLaMA: a coding harness that will not invalidate the context cache at each prompt (Sep 16, 2026)Public sourcereddit.com
  12. r/LocalLLaMA: Qwen-Code CLI free tier ended Apr 15 (Apr 16, 2026)Public sourcereddit.com

Keep reading

  1. ResearchQwen Code in Practice: What 47 Public Accounts ReportWhat 47 public accounts report about running Qwen Code: local models, stalled tasks, sign-in failures, and the end of the free tier on April 15, 2026.
  2. ComparisonKimi Code vs Qwen Code: Two Terminal Agents Built Around Chinese Frontier ModelsKimi Code bundles Moonshot's models in a Kimi plan; Qwen Code is an open-source agent that runs on any model, with Alibaba's Coding Plan as one option. Plans, quotas, models, data, and a team's monthly bill compared.
  3. ComparisonQwen Code vs Gemini CLI: The Fork and Its OriginalQwen Code began as a fork of Gemini CLI and now runs any model; Gemini CLI serves Google's paid Code Assist and API customers. Plans, limits, models, data use, and one team's monthly bill compared.
Read the research