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What is qwen36ba3b-m1macbook?

drewcsillag/qwen36ba3b-m1macbook — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-05-18

1ShellAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5Setup · moderate

In one sentence

Shell scripts that run a large open AI language model as a local, OpenAI compatible server on Apple Silicon Macs.

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What it does
      Runs Qwen model locally
      OpenAI compatible API
      One script setup
    Tech stack
      Shell
      Python
      MLX
      Qwen model
    Use cases
      Local LLM server
      Offline coding assistant backend
      Privacy focused inference
    Audience
      Mac developers
      AI hobbyists
      Vibe coders

Code map

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Run a capable open source language model locally on a Mac without cloud API costs

USE CASE 2

Point an OpenAI compatible tool or app at a local server instead of a paid API

USE CASE 3

Experiment with a mixture of experts model on consumer Apple Silicon hardware

What is it built with?

ShellPythonMLXQwen

How does it compare?

drewcsillag/qwen36ba3b-m1macbookanthonyhann/knowledge-wikibaiyuetribe/test-heroku
Stars111
LanguageShellShellShell
Last pushed2021-06-30
MaintenanceDormant
Setup difficultymoderatemoderatehard
Complexity3/53/51/5
Audiencedeveloperdeveloperdeveloper

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · moderate Time to first run · 30min

Requires an Apple Silicon Mac with at least 24 GB unified memory.

So what is it?

This repository provides Shell scripts to run Qwen3.6-35B-A3B, a large AI language model, as a local HTTP server on Apple Silicon Macs, with an API compatible with the OpenAI API format. The goal is to make it easy to use a capable open model locally without a cloud service. The model has an unusual architecture. GatedDeltaNet is used for 30 of its 40 layers: instead of a growing memory cache that expands with longer conversations, it maintains a fixed size recurrent state, so memory usage stays constant regardless of context length. The other layers use Mixture of Experts, where only 8 of 256 specialized sub networks are activated per token. The result is a model with 35 billion total parameters but roughly 3 billion active at a time. At 3 bit quantization it fits in about 16 GB of unified memory and runs at around 37 tokens per second on an M1 Pro with 32 GB RAM. Setup runs a single script that creates a Python virtual environment, installs MLX, Apple's machine learning framework for Apple Silicon, applies a small patch so the server accepts any model name, and downloads the model weights. The server then exposes endpoints at /v1/chat/completions and /v1/completions, so any tool configured for an OpenAI compatible API works without changes. A thinking mode is on by default, where the model produces a chain of thought reasoning section before its final answer. This can be disabled for faster responses. Requirements are an Apple Silicon Mac, M1, M2, M3, or M4, with at least 24 GB unified memory, macOS 13 Ventura or later, and Python 3.10 to 3.12.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1
Walk me through running the setup script for Qwen3.6-35B-A3B on my Apple Silicon Mac
Prompt 2
Show me how to point an OpenAI compatible client at the local /v1/chat/completions endpoint this project starts
Prompt 3
Explain what GatedDeltaNet and Mixture of Experts mean in this model's architecture
Prompt 4
Help me disable the model's thinking mode for faster responses

Frequently asked questions

What is qwen36ba3b-m1macbook?

Shell scripts that run a large open AI language model as a local, OpenAI compatible server on Apple Silicon Macs.

What language is qwen36ba3b-m1macbook written in?

Mainly Shell. The stack also includes Shell, Python, MLX.

How hard is qwen36ba3b-m1macbook to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated moderate, with roughly 30min to a first successful run.

Who is qwen36ba3b-m1macbook for?

Mainly developer.

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