Structured Outputs And Json Mode

Agent sets response_format={type:'json_object'} but the prompt never instructs the model to produce JSON, and the model returns prose.

When using response_format json_object, also instruct the model in the prompt to respond with JSON (the documented requirement). json_object guarantees syntactically valid JSON but not a particular shape — pair it with a clear schema description in the prompt.

Agent needs guaranteed schema-valid output and sets response_format with a json_schema, but does not check whether the chosen model supports structured outputs.

Use response_format={type:'json_schema', json_schema:{...}} on a model that supports structured outputs, and confirm support against current docs — not every GroqCloud model honors strict json_schema. Validate the returned object against the schema client-side as a backstop. [REQUIRES-VERIFICATION]…

Under json_object the model returns JSON wrapped in a markdown code fence (```json ... ```), and the agent's json.loads() throws.

Parse defensively: strip code fences if present, json.loads in a try/except, and on failure either repair-and-retry once or surface a structured error. Do not crash the request path on a single malformed payload; treat parsing as fallible.