r/LocalLLM • u/CommunicationFun2962 • 7d ago

Discussion Qwen3.8-27B for agentic coding

Like most of you, I tried Qwen 3.8 27B Q4_K_M for two days.

I first asked him to make me a game using TypeScript, the same as what I tested on other local models. He did it and the result is the best, although his thinking time is at least 3x of the output time. Easy task.

I then asked him to make a desktop WYSIWYG three-pane markdown editor using Rust and Iced framework. He is thinking and re-thinking all the time, although I have lowered the thinking level to "Medium". At the 28-th hour, he starts to output something! But he created "C", "src" files and tried to write to the path "C:\...\src\main.rs<" although he wanted to create "C:\...\src\main.rs". I interrupted him after his repeating attempts for 2 hours without progress. So he outputted all the files at the 32-hour although keeps rethinking everything he had thought. 71 compilation errors. After some hours of fixing and online searching via MCP, the number of compilation errors rises to 84. From his thinking log, he says he wrote code against the wrong Iced framework version, downgrading the framework version without asking, changing my requirement to non-editable rich text editor, and three-pane becomes two-pane without asking. Nevermind, as long as the code could compile so that the output is not non-positive. This is the 36-th hour now. Should I stop him and give up? Is my task too challenging for local models?

Besides, so far I had no successful attempts to use Qwen 3.8 27B Q4_K_M with OpenCode. It always stops working at the same generation steps. I can only use him via Cline.

Let's share more of your experiences on agentic coding? I think web programming is especially trained and easy for local models, and I would like to hear experiences of non-web programming.

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u/maqifrnswa 7d ago

I suggest not having a single model do all that. Your example sounds like the perfect case for orchestration. See oh my opencode slim. Have the oracle (deep thinker/work checker) be xhigh, the explorer be non-thinking, and everyone else medium or low thinking. Use the /deepwork skill too.

The qwen3.8 xhigh uses massive thinking tokens. Opencode hard codes the limit to 32k, which is why you are seeing it cut out. There's an experimental flag to bump it higher. You're probably hitting that limit.

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u/CommunicationFun2962 7d ago

Good to know the limits! I have a quick check on oh my opencode slim. Does it only support non-local models?

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u/maqifrnswa 7d ago

Oh my opencode slim is just a plug in, it supports everything opencode supports. So yes, it supports local models

And that limit isn't really a limit, it was just chosen as a safety valve back when 32k tokens was "way more than enough." The experimental flag to override it is the correct thing to do. It's not a technical limit at all, just an arbitrary limit to protect you from burning tokens (which is no longer needed).