Qwen3.6-27B
MLX 8-bit · Text + Vision + Thinking + Tool Calling Apple Silicon native
What's this?
Qwen3.6-27B is a 27B-parameter dense model from Alibaba. It uses a hybrid linear/full attention architecture (3:1 ratio across 64 layers) that combines efficient DeltaNet-style linear attention with full softmax attention at regular intervals. It supports 262K context, vision, video, and multi-token prediction.
This is an MLX 8-bit conversion of the official Qwen3.6-27B weights, ready to run on Apple Silicon with full text, image, and video support.
Architecture details
Spec
Value
Total params
27.8B (dense, all active)
Layers
64 (3x linear attention + 1x full attention, 16 repetitions)
You are Qwen, created by Alibaba Cloud. You are a helpful assistant.
The model underperforms without it. You can append anything after that line.
Thinking toggle
This model ships with a fixed Jinja chat template that lets you toggle thinking on the fly. Drop <|think_on|> or <|think_off|> anywhere in your system or user prompt. The template intercepts the tag, strips it from context so the model never sees it, and flips the thinking mode.
System: You are a coding assistant. <|think_off|>
User: What's 2+2?
Fast answer, no internal reasoning.
System: You are a coding assistant. <|think_on|>
User: Implement a red-black tree in Rust.
The model thinks step by step, then answers.
Chat template
The bundled Jinja template fixes several issues in the official Qwen 3.6 template:
Tool calls crash on C++ engines. The official template uses Python's |items filter and |safe, which do not exist in C++ Jinja runtimes (LM Studio, MLX). This template uses direct dictionary key lookups instead.
The developer role crashes. Modern APIs send message.role == "developer". The official template throws an exception. This template maps it to system.
Empty preserve_thinking spam. The official template wraps every past turn in empty <think/> blocks, wasting context tokens. This template only emits thinking blocks when they contain actual reasoning content.
</thinking> hallucination handling. The model sometimes generates </thinking> instead of the expected closing tag. This template handles both gracefully.
Thinking toggle.<|think_on|> / <|think_off|> from any message role.
