Chain-of-Thought for Open-Weight Llama Models

As noted in 2026 prompt engineering guides, on most open-weight models (which do not run hidden RL thinking budgets), explicit Chain-of-Thought prompting still helps substantially for math, logic, and multi-step tasks.

<|begin_of_text|><|header_start|>user<|header_end|> Reconcile the intercompany eliminations in <ledger>{{DATA}}</ledger>. Think step-by-step through each subsidiary balance before outputting the consolidated total.<|eot|> <|header_start|>assistant<|header_end|>