The Tool Desk
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What the default setting controls
The flag is a vLLM serving option for supplying default chat-template keyword arguments. It lets the server apply template options without requiring each client request to repeat them. A request can provide its own chat_template_kwargs when the client needs different behavior. The exact parameter placement depends on the serving interface: Qwen’s model card shows API-side arguments, while vLLM’s recipe documents the server flag.
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For Qwen3.8-27B, the documented default is to generate thinking content before the final response and use xhigh reasoning effort. Qwen describes this as thinking before responding. Thinking content may appear in a <think>...</think> block.
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enable_thinking: thinking on or off
This option controls whether the model uses thinking mode. It is on by default for Qwen3.8-27B. To request a direct response without thinking in the vLLM recipe’s syntax, set:
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{"enable_thinking": false}
This disables thinking mode; it does not switch the model to a different set of weights.
reasoning_effort: requested reasoning depth
Qwen documents three values: xhigh, medium, and low. The default is xhigh, which Qwen describes as suited to complex tasks. medium balances accuracy and speed, while low prioritizes speed and cost. To request lower effort in the vLLM recipe’s syntax:
{"reasoning_effort": "low"}
Effort and thinking mode are separate controls: enable_thinking turns thinking on or off, while reasoning_effort selects a documented effort level when reasoning is enabled.
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preserve_thinking: whether earlier thinking stays in context
This option governs conversation history, not whether a new answer uses thinking mode. Qwen says historical thinking blocks are preserved by default. Setting preserve_thinking to false retains only the thinking blocks from the latest user message, changing what thinking content is carried across turns.
How to configure the options
In vLLM, --default-chat-template-kwargs supplies server-wide defaults; chat_template_kwargs supplies options for an individual request. Use the parameter syntax accepted by the particular serving interface and version rather than assuming API fields and command-line arguments are interchangeable.
Qwen’s model-card API example explicitly passes enable_thinking: true and preserve_thinking: true in chat_template_kwargs, and sets reasoning_effort: "xhigh". These match the stated defaults. Consult the vLLM serving documentation and the Qwen3.8-27B model card for the syntax relevant to your setup.
Quick Recap
Choosing settings for a workload
- For responses without thinking content, set
enable_thinkingtofalse. - For a lower requested reasoning depth, select
mediumorlowrather than the defaultxhigh. - Decide separately whether earlier thinking blocks should remain in multi-turn context by configuring
preserve_thinking. - For agent tasks, compare total latency and token use across the full task, including retries, rather than judging only the speed of one response. Qwen warns that lower effort may speed individual turns but can lead to failures and retries that increase total latency and token consumption.
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