> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://narev.ai/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Getting started

> First steps with Alibaba middleware for tracking AI costs.

## Installation

<CodeGroup>
  ```bash npm theme={null}
  npm install @ai-billing/alibaba @ai-billing/core @ai-sdk/alibaba ai
  ```

  ```bash pnpm theme={null}
  pnpm add @ai-billing/alibaba @ai-billing/core @ai-sdk/alibaba ai
  ```

  ```bash yarn theme={null}
  yarn add @ai-billing/alibaba @ai-billing/core @ai-sdk/alibaba ai
  ```
</CodeGroup>

## Overview

The `@ai-billing/alibaba` package provides middleware for tracking token usage and calculating costs when using Alibaba Cloud DashScope (Qwen) models with the Vercel AI SDK.

It captures usage straight from DashScope's OpenAI-compatible chat-completions payload, including cached prompt tokens (`prompt_tokens_details.cached_tokens`) and, for Qwen models running in thinking mode, reasoning tokens (`completion_tokens_details.reasoning_tokens`).

## Usage

To use the middleware, wrap your Alibaba model using `wrapLanguageModel` from the `ai` package and pass the `createAlibabaMiddleware`.

<Steps>
  <Step title="Initialize the Alibaba provider">
    First, set up the provider using the `@ai-sdk/alibaba` package and your API key.

    ```typescript theme={null}
    import { createAlibaba } from '@ai-sdk/alibaba';

    const alibaba = createAlibaba({
      apiKey: process.env.ALIBABA_API_KEY,
    });
    ```
  </Step>

  <Step title="Define model pricing">
    Set up a price resolver to define the costs for the models you'll be using. For Alibaba, you can specify costs for standard prompt/completion tokens, cached prompt tokens, and reasoning tokens.

    ```typescript theme={null}
    import { createObjectPriceResolver } from '@ai-billing/core';

    const priceResolver = createObjectPriceResolver({
      'qwen-plus': {
        promptTokens: 0.8 / 1_000_000, // $0.80 per 1M tokens
        completionTokens: 2.0 / 1_000_000, // $2.00 per 1M tokens
        inputCacheReadTokens: 0.4 / 1_000_000, // discounted cache-read rate
      },
    });
    ```
  </Step>

  <Step title="Create the billing middleware">
    Initialize the Alibaba billing middleware. You need to provide a destination (such as `consoleDestination`) where billing events will be sent, along with your `priceResolver`.

    ```typescript theme={null}
    import { createAlibabaMiddleware } from '@ai-billing/alibaba';
    import { consoleDestination } from '@ai-billing/core';

    const billingMiddleware = createAlibabaMiddleware({
      destinations: [consoleDestination()],
      priceResolver: priceResolver,
    });
    ```
  </Step>

  <Step title="Wrap the model">
    Use `wrapLanguageModel` from the `ai` package to apply the billing middleware to your Alibaba model.

    ```typescript theme={null}
    import { wrapLanguageModel } from 'ai';

    const wrappedModel = wrapLanguageModel({
      model: alibaba('qwen-plus'),
      middleware: billingMiddleware,
    });
    ```
  </Step>

  <Step title="Use the wrapped model">
    Finally, use the wrapped model with AI SDK functions like `generateText` or `streamText`. The billing middleware will automatically track tokens, handle cached and reasoning tokens, and calculate costs.

    ```typescript theme={null}
    import { generateText } from 'ai';

    const result = await generateText({
      model: wrappedModel,
      prompt: 'What is the capital of Sweden?',
    });
    ```
  </Step>
</Steps>