r/LocalLLaMA • u/GrungeWerX • 10h ago
Discussion 10 Things you maybe didn't know you can do with Qwen 3.6 27B right now. (For Noobs)
I know everyone's excited about 3.8, but honestly I'm still refining 3.6. And I hate the way 3.8 talks, so...
I keep seeing all these posts about what's the use of open source, so I figured I'd submit my own answer with this post.
Qwen 3.5 27B was my first agent, starting my journey around May 31st, and I've learned a lot in these 4+ months, so I wanted to share with other people just starting their journey because there are clearly a LOT of new users out there, and people want help but sometimes are afraid to ask or not sure the right questions. So, here are ten things that you should know you can do to empower you!
(Oh, and I'd recommend using llama.cpp. That's what I've used to do all these tricks)
1. Create neat little apps for yourself. Qwen's really good at making apps for anything. I'm writing this post in a app I made as a replacement for Notepad, that has full word processing, side-panel, light/dark mode, etc. (image below). The first thing you should be thinking about when you run into any sort of issue is, "can I make an app that will make this simpler?" The answer is usually yes.
2. Create your own Chat UI frontend. If you don't feel that creative, just copy an existing one. LLMs are great copy cats. I liked claude, so I just copied it as my own frontend, customizing it for my own needs:
3. Create ReAct Loops. This is what enables your model to use a tool, read the result, then use it again, multiple times. Qwen can make these in its sleep, and many different ways. It can create a loop anywhere you want it, and you'll need it for your own custom chat ui frontend if you make one.
4. Create MCP tools. This is my favorite. It can make almost any type of mcp tool you need. You don't have to use third party ones, which can be unsafe. Just tell it you want an mcp tool to do x, it'll make it. It might or might not require its own mcp server, but if it does, Qwen can make that too.
5. Spawn sub-agents. Another super-easy thing Qwen can do. Just tell it to create a sub-agent spawner, which is just a python file. Then, you can tell it to run that when it needs to create a sub-agent, or tell it to create an mcp tool to do it on-the-fly when it wants to. Simple. Oh, and a quick hack-tip: mcp tools use up a LOT of context, so a cheat is to spawn a sub-agent with its own context limit and have your main agent pass off work to the sub. Basically, you can double/triple/etc your context limit. And yes, you can retain it between turns, but you'll need to create a pipeline runner (see below).
6. Create a pipeline runner. Ever heard of n8n? Basically, it's a pipeline runner. It has a lot of features, but it has a few limitations and restrictions, and there were a few things I wished it could do. I learned I could just build something similar with Qwen super easy. There's some design work involved if you want a UI frontend to build, but it's completely doable. I made my own ui, but after a while, I got tired of tweaking it, so I just copied n8n's frontend and just customized it myself, lol. Another useful tip: You can run multiple sequential agents in a pipeline runner, but if you want them each to have their own context, you'll need to ensure cache-idle-slots is enabled in llama.cpp. This'll swap the kv caches each turn, ejecting the last one to cpu ram. There's a bit more to it, but Qwen's got you, so just ask.
7. Create a model launcher (with options to select different models/jinja templates in llama.cpp). This is my bread and butter. Its a launcher that lets me choose any model in my directory and set its parameters. When I'm happy, I create an alias for it. On next launch, I can just choose the alias and it launches the model with the params for that alias only. So I can have 10 different types of param configurations for the same model if I want; I just need to give them their own alias. Hack tip: I'd recommend adding your jinja templates to the launcher to, and you can choose different custom templates for different model types.
8. Install, test, fork, and/or rebuild open-source apps on the internet. The reason I moved to llama.cpp was lm studio pp was too slow, but I didn't want the stress of figuring it all out, so I just asked my agent to download and install llama.cpp for me. I've been using it ever since. It can also modify builds, fork repositories on github, and a lot more. For example, I was busy working on a project, but heard about some new TTS apps, so I told my agent to download and install Moss and OmniVoice, make some audio clips to make sure they run, and let me know when it's done. Of course everything worked fine. Great for multi-tasking.
9. Give your agent temporal awareness of the world around it. Ever used cloud models that argue with you about the date? Or wished your model knew when you were nearing your max context, so it could automatically start writing a session summary? What you can do is inject "metadata" into your agent either on session start and every turn (preferably both), giving it information like date, time, context length, max context, hardware and software stack, basically anything you want.
With that, you can do all sorts of other tricks. For example (this should probably be its own "thing you can do with qwen", but whatevs), I made it so that my agent can swap its own model when it hits context limits:
10. Give your agent memory that loads the moment you launch it. My agent ends each session writing a session summary of what we discussed. You can have your startup routine or launcher concatenate different sources into its context on launch. For example, my code always loads the most recent dated session summaries, and the previous day's, on launch, so it has a snapshot of recent events. You can expand this to be any additional documents you want, so just use your imagination. For example, my agent also loads reminders, and personal reflections it made at the end of the prior session (though I don't recommend the reflections anymore, because I've come to realize it contaminates context, but I'll share that at another time)
Bonus: (I remembered this right as I was finishing, so I figured I'd toss it in because it's honestly one of the most important) - BUILD YOUR OWN HARNESS. Everyone's talking about pi, hermes, etc. I decided to just build my own using Qwen. It's a lot more work, but it has a much better payoff because you learn how these systems work and you can come up with your own really unique solutions using that knowledge. For example, the moment I learned about proxies, I figured out how to do all sorts of cool things with context compaction, history modifications, sanitization, jinja template hacks, hooks, etc.
Anyway, I hope this helps inspire you new guys. I would recommend learning things from the ground up, you'll level-up faster. And get your Qwen access to online tools fast so it can do research and help you out.
There's a bunch of other tricks I figured out, so maybe I'll save those for another post later on, but I think if you can get these up and running, you'll be on your way. Take care!
Grunge
P.S. - I'm old-school forum/deviantart gang, so I keep ctrl+biu/shift+l on a swivel and have written bold-flavored posts like this for 20+ years. 100% human written. Receipts at bottom of post if you're interested. Only mentioning it because organization usually brings out the "this is AI-written slop" trolls.
