PromptSharp › Glossary › Top-p (Nucleus Sampling)
What is Top-p (Nucleus Sampling)?
Top-p limits the model to the smallest set of words whose combined probability reaches p, controlling output diversity.
Top-p, or nucleus sampling, is a generation setting that restricts word choice to the smallest group of candidate words whose probabilities add up to p (e.g. 0.9). Lowering p makes output more focused; raising it toward 1.0 allows more variety.
It does a similar job to temperature and the two interact. Common guidance is to adjust one at a time rather than pushing both to extremes, which can make output incoherent.
Frequently asked
Should I change temperature or top-p?
Pick one to tune and leave the other at its default. Temperature is the more intuitive dial for most people; top-p is useful when you want to cap the tail of unlikely words while keeping the rest of the distribution intact.
Related terms
Put this into practice
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