Structured Outputs Fix JSON Format, Not AI Hallucinations, Developer Finds
A developer building ShapeCraft, an open-source structured output library for OpenAI, Groq, Ollama, and Anthropic, found that JSON Schema validation and factual accuracy are two entirely separate guarantees. While structured outputs reliably ensure valid JSON, correct data types, and required fields, they cannot verify whether the extracted information actually matches the source document. The developer observed that different AI providers implement structured outputs in distinct ways — ranging from native server-side enforcement to best-effort prompt-and-retry approaches — which affects architectural decisions. ShapeCraft exposes a 'guaranteeLevel' field so developers know how confidently a response matches the schema structurally. The developer argues that the next frontier in AI tooling must address the harder problem of information trustworthiness, including source attribution, confidence scores, and semantic verification.
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