← Concept IndexDEFINITION WHY IT MATTERS COMMONLY CONFUSED WITH
Prompting & context engineering
Output format
Also called: structure the answer, give me a table
Specifying the shape of the response — a table, bullet list, JSON, a specific number of items, a template to fill — so the result is usable without reformatting.
Format is a cheap lever with a big payoff, especially when the output feeds another step or tool. Asking for the exact structure you need saves the back-and-forth of reshaping it later.
Content quality. A neatly formatted answer can still be wrong; format controls shape, not accuracy.