# Decision: output token ceiling

Once every option had to carry runnable T-SQL, the candidate JSON outgrew the old 2 048-token budget. The user
waited 38 seconds and got "The analyst model returned malformed JSON" — a truncated response has no closing brace.

Both calls default to 4 096 now, and the failure message names the character count and tells the user which extra
parameter raises the ceiling, because `cfg.extra` is spread after `max_tokens`.

The general rule recorded here: when a prompt asks a model for more content, check the budget before blaming the
model's judgement.

Related: [[Analyst model]], [[Placeholder SQL is dropped]].