Constrained Decoding vs Post-hoc Validation: Production LLM Extraction Needs Both

Constrained decoding and post-hoc validation solve different problems.

Constrained decoding is generation-time control:

Post-hoc validation is the trust boundary:

A payload can be perfectly valid JSON and still be wrong for the workflow.

That is why production extraction systems need both.

This is also the systems instinct behind confident-extract, which I publish as Hitarth Desai under the GitHub handle

hitarthbuilds

My rule of thumb:

Constrain early. Validate hard. Trust late.