Contextual Tips

Qwen Code includes a contextual tips system that helps you discover features and stay aware of session state.

Startup Tips

Each time you launch Qwen Code, a tip is shown in the header area. Tips are selected by priority first, then rotated across sessions using LRU (least-recently-used) scheduling among tips of the same priority, so you see a different tip each time.

New users see onboarding-focused tips during their first sessions:

Sessions	Example tips
< 5	Slash commands (`/`), Tab autocomplete
< 10	`QWEN.md` project context, `--continue` / `--resume`
< 15	Shell commands with `!` prefix

After that, tips rotate through general features like /compress, /approval-mode, /insight, /btw, and more.

Post-Response Tips

During a conversation, Qwen Code monitors your context window usage and shows tips when action may be needed:

Context usage	Condition	Tip
50-80%	After a few prompts in session	Suggests `/compress` to free up context
80-95%	—	Warns context is getting full
>= 95%	—	Urgent: run `/compress` now or `/new` to continue

Post-response tips have per-tip cooldowns to avoid being repetitive.

Tip History

Tip display history is persisted at ~/.qwen/tip_history.json. This file tracks:

Session count (used for new-user tip selection)
Which tips have been shown and when (used for LRU rotation and cooldown)

You can safely delete this file to reset tip history.

Disabling Tips

To hide all tips (both startup and post-response), set ui.hideTips to true in ~/.qwen/settings.json:


{
  "ui": {
    "hideTips": true
  }
}

You can also toggle this in the settings dialog via the /settings command.

Tips are also automatically hidden when screen reader mode is enabled.