Structured Output Overview LLMs love to ramble. When you need JSON, you get JSON wrapped in markdown. When you need a list, you get a paragraph. Structured output forces the model to return exactly the schema you define — validated, typed, and ready to use in code without parsing gymnastics. When to Use - Extracting structured data from unstructured text (invoices, emails, articles) - Building API responses powered by LLMs that must match a schema - Creating reliable data pipelines where LLM output feeds into databases - Generating configuration files, test cases, or code from natural languag…