Qwen Code overview

Learn about Qwen Code, Qwen’s agentic coding tool that lives in your terminal and helps you turn ideas into code faster than ever before.

Get started in 30 seconds

Prerequisites:

A Qwen Code account
Requires Node.js 20+ , you can use node -v to check the version. If it’s not installed, use the following command to install it.

Install Qwen Code:

NPM(recommended)


npm install -g @qwen-code/qwen-code@latest

Homebrew(macOS, Linux)


brew install qwen-code

Start using Qwen Code:


cd your-project
qwen

Select Qwen OAuth (Free) authentication and follow the prompts to log in. Then let’s start with understanding your codebase. Try one of these commands:


what does this project do?

You’ll be prompted to log in on first use. That’s it! Continue with Quickstart (5 mins) →

Tip

See troubleshooting if you hit issues.

Note

New VS Code Extension (Beta): Prefer a graphical interface? Our new VS Code extension provides an easy-to-use native IDE experience without requiring terminal familiarity. Simply install from the marketplace and start coding with Qwen Code directly in your sidebar. You can search for Qwen Code in the VS Code Marketplace and download it.

What Qwen Code does for you

Build features from descriptions: Tell Qwen Code what you want to build in plain language. It will make a plan, write the code, and ensure it works.
Debug and fix issues: Describe a bug or paste an error message. Qwen Code will analyze your codebase, identify the problem, and implement a fix.
Navigate any codebase: Ask anything about your team’s codebase, and get a thoughtful answer back. Qwen Code maintains awareness of your entire project structure, can find up-to-date information from the web, and with MCP can pull from external datasources like Google Drive, Figma, and Slack.
Automate tedious tasks: Fix fiddly lint issues, resolve merge conflicts, and write release notes. Do all this in a single command from your developer machines, or automatically in CI.

Why developers love Qwen Code

Works in your terminal: Not another chat window. Not another IDE. Qwen Code meets you where you already work, with the tools you already love.
Takes action: Qwen Code can directly edit files, run commands, and create commits. Need more? MCP lets Qwen Code read your design docs in Google Drive, update your tickets in Jira, or use your custom developer tooling.
Unix philosophy: Qwen Code is composable and scriptable. tail -f app.log | qwen -p "Slack me if you see any anomalies appear in this log stream" works. Your CI can run qwen -p "If there are new text strings, translate them into French and raise a PR for @lang-fr-team to review".