Glossary · Evaluator mechanisms
Constrained decoding
Grammar-constrained generation that guarantees every output belongs to a formal language: every emission parses and every tool call is schema-valid. A genuine guarantee about syntax, never semantics.
Defined in
Handbook · PracticeGuarantee before you estimateMake bad states unreachable, verify the scaffold you control, and spend samples only on what construction can't reach.Related terms
- Structural guarantee
- A property enforced by the system's construction (permissions, sandboxes, verified scaffold rules, or an output grammar), so a failure is unreachable rather than rare. It holds only for its configured trusted base.
Where it comes up
- Mechanism familiesHandbook · Instrument