Filed under OpenAI

If your application needs a category and one reason, a page of explanation creates extra reading and processing work. Define the output your next step can actually use. For a document-routing exercise, ask for an…

The model may not be the slowest part of your AI workflow. Retrieval, tool calls and repeated validation attempts can consume most of the waiting time. For a synthetic support task, record the duration of input…

An overnight document-classification job and a live customer conversation have different timing needs. Choose the API workflow around the deadline. For work that can wait, evaluate the Batch API using its current…

A batch job can return results in an order different from your input list. Joining by row position risks assigning one answer to another document. Give each synthetic input a unique identifier and preserve it through…

Two requests can look similar to a person while failing to reuse a cached prefix. Measure the actual usage data. Run a controlled test with a stable prompt and several different synthetic inputs. Record the API's…

If many API requests share the same instructions, keep that stable material together. Changing text at the start of every request can prevent useful prompt-prefix reuse. For a classification workflow, put the fixed task…

A tool response that says only “something went wrong” leaves the next action to guesswork. Return a contained error that distinguishes useful recovery cases. For an order lookup, separate “not found,” “not authorized”…

A retrieved document can contain instructions that have nothing to do with the user's task. Its presence in a tool response does not give it authority. Use a synthetic search result that contains both a relevant fact…

“Prepare a refund” and “issue a refund” are different operations. Your tool interface should make that distinction visible. In a practice workflow, let the model propose the order, amount and reason. Have application…

A model's tool call is a request for your application to act. Validate that request before passing it to a database or service. For a synthetic order lookup, require an order identifier with the shape your system…

An example can quietly contradict the instruction above it. The model then has two different versions of the job to follow. For a ticket-routing prompt, write the routing rule and inspect every example against it. If…

A longer context window does not make every document relevant. Extra material can make it harder to see which source supports a decision. For a policy-answering exercise, supply the policy section that applies, its…

A difficult task benefits from a clear outcome and constraints. A long prompt full of instructions to “think harder” may add little useful information. For a practice planning task, give the OpenAI model the available…

A saved prompt is not a complete experiment record. The model, relevant settings and test inputs can all affect the result. When comparing an OpenAI workflow, record the exact model identifier used, the prompt version…

Prompt tuning is hard to assess when the definition of “better” changes after every answer. Freeze a small acceptance set first. For a document-routing task, define the allowed destinations and label a collection of…

Structured output can make a model response easier to parse. It cannot tell you whether the invoice number or amount was extracted correctly. Try a synthetic invoice with a subtotal, tax and total. Ask an OpenAI model…

A model can handle ordinary support tickets well and still fail on the exceptions that consume most of your team's time. Build a small evaluation set from representative, appropriately sanitized cases. Include a missing…