Introduction to Reasoning › Common Pitfalls with Reasoning

As you use chain-of-thought prompting, watch out for these issues:

Over-reasoning simple questions: Don't force reasoning onto questions that don't need it. "What's 2 + 2?" doesn't need a multi-step explanation.

Assuming reasoning guarantees correctness: Reasoning helps, but the agent can still make mistakes. The reasoning might be flawed, or based on incorrect assumptions. Always check important results.

Making prompts too long: If you're adding extensive examples or instructions for reasoning, you might make your prompts unwieldy. Keep them as concise as possible while still being clear.

Forgetting to use the reasoning: If you prompt for reasoning but then only look at the final answer, you're missing the value. The reasoning itself is useful for verification and understanding.