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docs: add thinking/reasoning guide and expand provider thinking docs#3004

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rumpl:docs/thinking-guide
Jun 5, 2026
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docs: add thinking/reasoning guide and expand provider thinking docs#3004
dgageot merged 2 commits into
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rumpl:docs/thinking-guide

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@rumpl rumpl commented Jun 5, 2026

New docs/guides/thinking/index.md covering thinking/reasoning across all providers, plus expanded sections on OpenAI and AWS Bedrock.

  • New guide (docs/guides/thinking/): cross-provider reference — effort levels, token budgets, adaptive thinking, interleaved thinking, thinking display, task budget, and a complexity-based chooser table
  • Bedrock: add Thinking Budget and Interleaved Thinking sections with effort-to-token mapping table and beta header behaviour (previously only a one-liner in a table)
  • OpenAI: replace one-liner with effort-level table, hidden reasoning token callout, and adaptive thinking example
  • nav.yml: register the new guide under Guides

See examples/thinking_budget.yaml for a runnable demo.

- Add docs/guides/thinking/index.md: comprehensive cross-provider guide
  covering OpenAI (effort levels, adaptive, token floor), Anthropic
  (token budget, adaptive/effort-based, interleaved thinking, thinking
  display, task budget), Gemini 2.5 (token), Gemini 3 (level-based),
  Bedrock Claude (token + effort mapping, interleaved thinking), and
  xAI/Mistral.
- Expand AWS Bedrock docs: add Thinking Budget and Interleaved Thinking
  sections with effort-to-token mapping table and beta header behaviour.
- Expand OpenAI docs: replace one-liner with effort-level table, hidden
  reasoning token warning, and adaptive thinking example.
- Register thinking guide in nav.yml under Guides.
@rumpl rumpl requested a review from a team as a code owner June 5, 2026 06:04
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Assessment: 🟡 NEEDS ATTENTION

2 documentation inconsistency findings in added lines. Both relate to the OpenAI max effort level being omitted from standalone tables while adaptive/max is referenced in YAML comments — creating a potential user-facing ambiguity.

gpt-adaptive:
provider: openai
model: gpt-5-mini
thinking_budget: adaptive/medium # adaptive/low | adaptive/medium | adaptive/high | adaptive/xhigh | adaptive/max
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[MEDIUM] max effort level missing from standalone table but referenced in adaptive comment

The effort-level table (lines 64–71) lists none, minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh — but the Adaptive Thinking YAML comment on this line includes adaptive/max, implying max is a recognised level. This creates an internal inconsistency: if max is a valid OpenAI effort level, it should appear in the standalone table (and in the inline comment on line 59). If it is only valid inside adaptive/, this asymmetry may silently mislead users who try thinking_budget: max without the adaptive/ prefix.

Suggested fix: Either add max as a row in the effort table (between xhigh and a note that it is rarely needed), or explicitly note in the adaptive section that adaptive/max is a special-case form not available as a bare level.

Comment thread docs/guides/thinking/index.md Outdated

| Provider | Format | Values | Default |
| -------------- | ---------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------ |
| OpenAI | string | `minimal`, `low`, `medium`, `high`, `xhigh`, `none`, `adaptive/<level>` | `medium` |
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[MEDIUM] Quick Reference table omits max for OpenAI while adaptive comment references adaptive/max

The Quick Reference table on this line lists OpenAI's valid values as minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh, none, adaptive/<level> — with no mention of a bare max level. Yet the adaptive YAML comment on line 72 explicitly enumerates adaptive/max as a valid choice. Compare with the Anthropic row (line 28) and AWS Bedrock row (line 31), both of which list max explicitly.

If max is a valid standalone OpenAI level (as it was in the old inline comment and as it maps to a token budget for Bedrock), it should appear in this table. If it is intentionally excluded from the non-adaptive path, a brief note would prevent users from copying the Anthropic pattern and wondering why thinking_budget: max is rejected.

Suggested fix: Either add max to the OpenAI values cell, or add a footnote clarifying that max is only valid as adaptive/max for OpenAI.

Add a note in both the thinking guide and OpenAI provider page that
bare 'thinking_budget: max' is not accepted by OpenAI — max is only
valid inside the adaptive/ prefix (adaptive/max). ForOpenAI() in
pkg/effort/effort.go confirms: only minimal/low/medium/high/xhigh
are accepted as standalone levels.
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rumpl commented Jun 5, 2026

Addressed both reviewer comments (comments #3360724109 and #3360724113):

  • Confirmed via pkg/effort/effort.go (ForOpenAI): only minimal, low, medium, high, xhigh are valid standalone levels — max is intentionally excluded.
  • Added a note in both the thinking guide and the OpenAI provider page clarifying that max is only valid as adaptive/max, not as a bare thinking_budget value.

@aheritier aheritier added area/providers/openai For features/issues/fixes related to the usage of OpenAI models area/providers/bedrock AWS Bedrock provider support kind/docs Documentation-only changes labels Jun 5, 2026
@dgageot dgageot merged commit 70cd7a1 into docker:main Jun 5, 2026
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