The configuration section, located at the top of every prompt file and enclosed by triple dashes (---), defines how Latitude executes your prompt. It’s written in YAML format and allows you to specify the AI provider, model, generation parameters, and other advanced settings. Prompt configuration section 
---
provider: OpenAI
model: gpt-4o-mini
temperature: 0.6
top_p: 0.9
# ... other settings
---
Be sure there is a space after the colon ( : ) in your configurations.

​
Core Settings

​
Provider (required)

Specifies the AI provider to use (e.g., OpenAI, Anthropic, Google). This must match a provider configured in your Latitude workspace settings. You can easily select a configured provider using the dropdown in the editor’s header. Selecting a provider Learn more about configuring providers.

​
Model (required)

Specifies the exact language model to use (e.g., gpt-4o-mini, claude-3-opus-20240229). Available models depend on the selected provider. The model dropdown in the editor’s header lists available models for the chosen provider. Selecting a model

​
Generation Parameters

These parameters control how the AI model generates its response. The specific ranges and behaviors might vary slightly between providers.

​
temperature

Controls the randomness of the output. Lower values (e.g., 0.1) make the output more deterministic and focused, while higher values (e.g., 0.9) increase creativity and randomness.
Setting temperature to 0, or leaving it unset, enables response caching for identical inputs.
It’s generally recommended to adjust either temperature or topP, but not both.

​
maxTokens

Sets the maximum number of tokens (words or parts of words) the model can generate in its response.

​
topP (Nucleus Sampling)

An alternative to temperature for controlling randomness. It instructs the model to consider only the most probable tokens whose cumulative probability mass exceeds the topP value (e.g., 0.9 means consider tokens comprising the top 90% probability mass).

​
topK

Restricts the model to sampling only from the K most likely next tokens at each step. Generally used for advanced cases; temperature or topP are usually sufficient.

​
presencePenalty

Discourages the model from repeating information already present in the prompt context. Higher values increase the penalty.

​
frequencyPenalty

Discourages the model from using the same words or phrases repeatedly in its response. Higher values increase the penalty.

​
stopSequences

A list of strings that, if generated by the model, will cause generation to stop immediately.

​
seed

An integer used to initialize the random number generator. If supported by the model, using the same seed with identical inputs will produce deterministic outputs, useful for reproducibility.

​
Advanced Configuration

​
parameters

Defines types and constraints for input parameters used in the Playground or shared prompts. 
parameters:
  user_input:
    type: text # Default type
  image_upload:
    type: image
  data_file:
    type: file
Learn more about parameter types in the Playground guide.

​
schema

Defines a JSON schema to enforce structured output from the model. Learn more about enforcing JSON output.

​
tools

Lists the tools (functions) available for the AI model to call. Learn more about configuring tools.

​
maxSteps

For Chains and Agents, sets the maximum number of execution steps allowed (default: 20, max: 150).

​
maxRetries

Maximum number of times to retry a provider call on failure (default: 2).

​
headers

Sends additional HTTP headers with the request, useful for integrating with specific provider features or observability tools.

​
Next Steps