Effects of structural granularity beyond binary field ordering

Characterize how structural granularity beyond binary answer-first versus reasoning-first ordering affects reasoning in structured large-language-model outputs, including schemas with planning fields, intermediate steps, and verification stages.

Background

The study compares only two schema organizations: answer-first and reasoning-first. Real-world structured outputs may contain multiple stages, such as planning, intermediate reasoning, and verification, so the unresolved issue is whether the observed benefits of reasoning-first ordering extend to more finely grained schema designs.

References

We examine only two field orderings (answer-first and reasoning-first); real-world schemas involve finer-grained structure such as planning fields, intermediate steps, and verification stages, and how structural granularity beyond binary ordering affects reasoning remains an open question.

— Structure Tax: How Structured Output affects LLMs Performance  (2610.12056 - Kumar et al., 8 Oct 2026) in Limitations section