max_tokens

      # it emits the first brace, and a ceiling that cuts it off mid-thought
      # fails NIKA-INFER-002 ("no JSON value found · the reply was cut off at
      # the token limit"). Measured — 400 starves qwen3.5:4b on this prompt.
      max_tokens: 2000
      schema:
        type: object
        additionalProperties: false
        required: [steps]
        properties:
          steps: { type: array, items: { type: string } }