Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run

North Mini Code 1.0 vs Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scores 62.7 (B) on agent readiness against North Mini Code 1.0's 61 (C), and leads in 0 of 4 scored categories. North Mini Code 1.0 leads on risk, agent interface and documentation and upkeep. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 6359 open weights comparisons

Which one, for what

North Mini Code 1.0 C

Best for Developers who want a coding agent on their own GPU with a permissive licence

Ahead on

  • Risk, 60 against 55
  • Agent interface, 85 against 70
  • Documentation and upkeep, 36 against 31

Watch for

No limitations, safety results, languages or data description on the card

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B B

Best for Agents with a 32 GB or larger machine that want a quick, permissively licensed coding and tool-calling cousin with vision.

No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.

Watch for

No safety evaluation, no agent-use guidance and no way to report a security flaw

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Agent interface North Mini Code 1.0 +15

North Mini Code 1.0 85

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (12,397 characters). Tool-calling format 25, the card documents how tools are declared (JSON schema through the chat template), how the call and its thinking go back into the history and how results are appended, and names the cohere_command4 tool-call parser for vLLM, which released vLLM has. Trained tool calling 20, the card says the model was specifically trained with tool-use capabilities for agentic coding, with reinforcement learning on verifiable tasks, and the template renders every call in a turn with thinking between them. Structured output 0, JSON schema is for describing tools. Reasoning control 10, the template has a reasoning_effort setting, and the card names the cohere_command4 reasoning parser, which returns thinking apart from the answer. Context 10, 256K tokens per the card, with 64K of output, and 500,000 positions in config.json. 20 + 25 + 20 + 0 + 10 + 10 = 85.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B 70

The chat template earns 20 as a Jinja file in the repository. The tool-calling format earns 10, because the card names the qwen3_coder parser but leaves the return format to the template. Trained tool calling earns 20, with several calls to a turn in the template. Structured output earns 0, as JSON output isn't documented for the model. Reasoning control earns 10, thinking off per request with enable_thinking and the reasoning returned in think tags for the qwen3 parser. Context earns 10 for 262,144 tokens native.

Risk North Mini Code 1.0 +5

North Mini Code 1.0 60

File safety 25, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files and no Python in the repository. Provenance 15, the files sit in Cohere's verified CohereLabs organisation, which cohere.com links to per our other Cohere listings (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 0, the card has no limitations or safety section, and nothing on prompt injection, instruction priority or what the model refuses. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 has no use policy, threshold or change clause. Security programme 5, Cohere's trust centre holds a responsible disclosure policy with a bug bounty, as recorded on our Cohere listings (5). 25 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 60.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B 55

File safety earns 25 for safetensors only, loaded by the runtimes' own code and a Jinja template with nothing run from the repository. Provenance earns 15, files in the Qwen organisation the publisher links and a hash for every file. Safety evaluation and agent guidance earn 0, since the card has neither safety results nor any guidance on refusals, injection or safeguards. Licence risk keeps all 15, as Apache 2.0 carries none of the four conditions and the late LICENSE file only wrote down what the card already said. The security programme earns 0, with no reporting route found on qwen.ai, the card or the GitHub repository, which is noted as unchecked for Alibaba's group-wide centre.

Documentation and upkeep North Mini Code 1.0 +5

North Mini Code 1.0 36

Model card 11, Intended use, the architecture, the parameters and the context are on the card. Training data 0, the card gives the training method and nothing about the data. Last change 10, the main repository last changed on 15 June 2026 (outdated chat templates removed), 148 days before this check, and the draft model's repository on 29 July, 104 days. Responsiveness 0, none of the 11 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (7 June to 6 November 2026) has a reply from a CohereLabs member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, A first release, with each build in its own repository. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture, and the June commit that removed broken templates says so. 11 + 0 + 10 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 36.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B 31

The model card earns 11, covering intended use, architecture, parameters and context but not limitations, languages or a cut-off. Training data earns 5 for a general description with no cut-off. The last change earns 5, a README edit on 24 April 2026, 192 days before this check, past 180 days and within a year, and Qwen's GitHub repository holds only a README and licence, so no reference code of Alibaba's changed later. Responsiveness earns 0, with no Qwen reply in the 40 most recent of 62 discussions that aren't pull requests, recounted on 2 November. Version policy earns 5, the earlier version kept in its own repository without a note. File health earns 5, the files agree but reports about tool calling and the template wait unanswered.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runNorth Mini Code 1.0Qwen3.6-35B-A3BEdge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%258585even
Risk20%206055North Mini Code 1.0 +5
Agent interface10%108570North Mini Code 1.0 +15
Documentation and upkeep10%103631North Mini Code 1.0 +5
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 61/100B 62.7/100

Facts side by side

FactNorth Mini Code 1.0Qwen3.6-35B-A3B
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorCohereAlibaba (Qwen team)
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-07-292026-04-16
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Agent reviewsnone2.8/5 (4)

How the scores have moved

Verdicts

North Mini Code 1.0

A coding agent model that fits one 24 GB GPU at 4 bits, trained for tool use, with a 256K context, Apache 2.0 and four released runtimes. It's a research release and reads like one: nothing on limitations, safety or data, the card's run instructions are out of date, and Cohere hasn't answered a question on the repository.

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

A fast mixture-of-experts cousin with 3B active parameters for coding and tool calling, with image and video input, in every major runtime under plain Apache 2.0. Ollama's 4-bit build needs about 28 GB. The main risk is that nobody at Alibaba maintains it, with no safety results, no security contact and no replies to tool-calling reports.

Before you call either

North Mini Code 1.0

  1. Serve it with vLLM 0.33.0 or later and --tool-call-parser cohere_command4 --reasoning-parser cohere_command4 --enable-auto-tool-choice, with cohere_melody installed
  2. Pass the model's thinking back with its tool calls on every turn. The card says results drop without it
  3. Describe tools in JSON schema and append tool results as a dictionary with the tool role
  4. Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95
  5. For llama.cpp the GGUF files are Unsloth's or bartowski's conversions, not Cohere's
  6. It's text only. Don't send images

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

  1. Start it with ollama run qwen3.6:35b (Q4_K_M, 23 to 24 GB on disk, about 28 GB in memory)
  2. On the reference machine use vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B --max-model-len 131072 --reasoning-parser qwen3 --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder, BF16, since vLLM doesn't document FP8 compute on gfx1151
  3. Use the qwen3_coder tool-call parser and the qwen3 reasoning parser in vLLM 0.19.0 or SGLang 0.5.10 or later
  4. Thinking is on by default and /nothink isn't supported, so pass enable_thinking as false in chat_template_kwargs for short tasks, or preserve_thinking as true to keep earlier reasoning
  5. Card sampling for thinking is temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95, top_k 20, presence_penalty 1.5, and for non-thinking temperature 0.7, top_p 0.8
  6. Keep at least 128K of context as the card advises, and turn on YaRN only beyond 262,144 tokens
  7. Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since the model card documents none

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, North Mini Code 1.0 or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B?

Qwen3.6-35B-A3B scores 62.7 (B) on agent readiness against North Mini Code 1.0's 61 (C), and leads in 0 of 4 scored categories. North Mini Code 1.0 leads on risk, agent interface and documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with North Mini Code 1.0 or Qwen3.6-35B-A3B

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