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Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (DashScope)

Install

To use Alibaba models, you need to either install pydantic-ai, or install pydantic-ai-slim with the openai optional group (as it uses an OpenAI-compatible API):

pip install 'pydantic-ai-slim[openai]'

uv add 'pydantic-ai-slim[openai]'

Configuration

To use Qwen models via Alibaba Cloud Model Studio (DashScope), you can set the ALIBABA_API_KEY (or DASHSCOPE_API_KEY) environment variable and use AlibabaProvider by name:

from pydantic_ai import Agent

agent = Agent('alibaba:qwen-max')
...

Or initialise the model and provider directly:

from pydantic_ai import Agent
from pydantic_ai.models.openai import OpenAIChatModel
from pydantic_ai.providers.alibaba import AlibabaProvider

model = OpenAIChatModel(
    'qwen-max',
    provider=AlibabaProvider(api_key='your-api-key'),
)
agent = Agent(model)
...

The AlibabaProvider uses the international DashScope compatible endpoint https://dashscope-intl.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1 by default. You can override this by passing a custom base_url:

from pydantic_ai import Agent
from pydantic_ai.models.openai import OpenAIChatModel
from pydantic_ai.providers.alibaba import AlibabaProvider

model = OpenAIChatModel(
    'qwen-max',
    provider=AlibabaProvider(
        api_key='your-api-key',
        base_url='https://dashscope.aliyuncs.com/compatible-mode/v1',  # China region
    ),
)
agent = Agent(model)
...