5.2.3 · Lesson 12 of 14
Isolate Prompting and Instruction Conflicts
Isolate prompting issues such as randomness, formatting failures, and instruction conflicts that look like model bugs.
WHAT
Isolate prompting and instruction problems from infrastructure or retrieval failures.
HOW
- For math/formatting:
temperature = 0.0and explicit JSON Schema. - Separate system instructions cleanly; avoid conflicting directives.
- Confirm failures persist with fixed prompts before blaming the FM endpoint.
Common mistake
Increasing temperature to “solve” arithmetic or formatting errors.
Key points
- Temperature 0.0 for deterministic tasks
- JSON Schema enforcement
- Do not raise temperature for math errors
- Instruction conflicts vs retrieval bugs
- Structured output validators
Exam focus
Raising temperature worsens arithmetic and schema validation — set temperature = 0.0 and enforce structured output.