Agents need strict schemas, or their outputs are too hard to trust in production
blaizedsouza · x · 2026-07-26
A practical framework for enforcing structured outputs in agents
The post argues that free-form agent text is hard to trust in production, and that downstream systems should require strict structured outputs instead.
It recommends a simple enforcement loop:
- define a strict Pydantic / JSON Schema for every response
- use native structured output modes when available
- validate every output before it leaves the agent
- retry or repair on schema failures
- reject invalid outputs instead of guessing
- log violations so the system improves over time
The core claim is that if code expects a specific shape, the agent must guarantee it — and schema validation is cheaper than debugging broken pipelines later.
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