45.2 Outputs are correct but messy

Symptom

The content is right, but the formatting is inconsistent, has extra whitespace, or doesn't match your schema.

Fixes

// Fix 1: Enforce JSON schema
const schema = z.object({
  answer: z.string(),
  confidence: z.number().min(0).max(1)
});

const response = await model.generateContent({
  contents: prompt,
  generationConfig: { responseMimeType: 'application/json' }
});

const parsed = schema.parse(JSON.parse(response.text()));

// Fix 2: Post-processing
function cleanOutput(text: string): string {
  return text
    .trim()
    .replace(/```json\n?/g, '')  // Remove markdown
    .replace(/```\n?/g, '')
    .replace(/^\s*\n/gm, '');    // Remove blank lines
}

// Fix 3: Be explicit about format
const prompt = `
Output format (exact structure):
{
  "answer": "string, max 100 chars",
  "sources": ["array", "of", "strings"]
}

No markdown. No explanation. Just the JSON object.
`;

Where to go next

• 45.3 Confident but wrong