Data
Chat template
What is chat template?
A chat template is the model-specific rule for turning a list of role-tagged messages into the exact token sequence the model expects. Using the wrong template silently degrades output quality, because the model no longer recognises its own structure.
Each family has its own. The template is shipped with the model rather than chosen by the user, and applying it correctly is a prerequisite for both training and inference — a mismatch between the two is particularly damaging.
A model fine-tuned with one template and served with another will underperform in a way that resists diagnosis, because nothing errors and the output is merely worse.
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