implementation detail · filed under inference & serving
Think-tag response formatting
The response format uses <think> and </think> tokens to delimit reasoning content.
- source
- 1
- models
- 2
- lab adopt it
- 1
- strongest
- used
How sources treat it
One count per evidence span, weakest treatment to strongest.
used 1
Documented in
Evidence
1 span quoted from the sources, strongest treatment first.
we utilize specialized response formats demarcated by the <think> and </think> tokens.
usedpost trainingin DeepSeek-V4DeepSeek
Filed alongside
Other methods under inference & serving :: reasoning control.
Configurable reasoning effortChain-of-thought reasoningDefault thinking modeDeployment-time scalar effort controlDisabling reasoning via chat-template configurationInference-time reasoning budget controlInterleaved thinking between tool callsThinking mode selectionCross-turn persistent reasoning historyMaximum thinking effortReasoning parserAlways-on thinking modeclear_thinking chat-template parameterControl-token-enabled thinking modeEffort-dependent exponential token-penalty scheduleGenerate-verify-refine loopMedium-effort reasoning modeParallel-fewest-step samplingQwen3 soft thinking switchTask- and mode-specific sampling parameter recommendationsTest-time compute scalingAdaptive reasoningCapped linear reasoning-token length deductionConfigurable thinking or reasoning mode