How to set up Qwen 3.6 Plus Preview on OpenRouter for free OpenClaw usage

Free Qwen 3.6 model for OpenClaw agent work
A Reddit user reported that Qwen 3.6 Plus Preview is available for free on OpenRouter and works with OpenClaw for AI agent tasks. The model offers a 1 million token context window.
Setup steps from the source
The user provided specific instructions for configuring this setup:
- Create a free account on OpenRouter and copy your API key
- In OpenClaw, add the OpenRouter provider and paste the API key
- Refresh the model list or run
openclaw models scan - Set the model to
qwen/qwen3.6-plus-preview:free(type manually if not showing) - Run
openclaw config set agents.defaults.thinkingDefault high - Execute
openclaw gateway restart
The user mentioned previously burning through an OpenAI Codex plan quickly while using OpenClaw, then searching for better performance-to-price alternatives before discovering this free option.
📖 Read the full source: r/clawdbot
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