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@paytonison paytonison commented Aug 24, 2025

TL;DR: Rewrites the Cookbook introduction for clarity and usability. Adds quick-start Python/JS examples, streaming demo, glossary, and practical guidance on knobs, limits, and best practices.

Summary

This PR rewrites the Cookbook introduction to make it more user-friendly, actionable, and code-first.
The previous version gave a high-level overview but lacked copy-pasteable examples and practical guidance.
This rewrite focuses on the “developer experience” by giving readers immediate, working snippets and clear mental models.


What’s Changed

  • Quick-start code examples in both Python and JavaScript (Responses API, streaming).
  • At-a-glance diagram showing how LLMs work from tokens → embeddings → transformer → output.
  • Knobs & trade-offs (temperature, top-p, max tokens, context window, latency vs cost).
  • Streaming example for real-time UX patterns.
  • Limitations & gotchas (hallucinations, determinism, recency, JSON enforcement).
  • Glossary of core terms for fast reference.
  • “Where to go next” section that points to deeper Cookbook chapters (prompting, RAG, evaluation, safety).

Why This Helps

  • Gives new users immediate hands-on success.
  • Makes terminology precise (distinguishing embeddings vs contextual representations).
  • Surfaces best practices (defaults, evaluation, streaming).
  • Updates language so it doesn’t feel tied to older GPT versions.
  • Provides a consistent structure with other Cookbook pages (overview → code → concepts → limits → glossary).

Notes for Reviewers

  • Rendered Markdown has been previewed for formatting.
  • Code snippets have been validated against current SDKs.
  • Kept length reasonable while still comprehensive; open to trimming if you’d prefer a shorter intro.

✅ Clearer, friendlier, and more actionable for first-time Cookbook readers.


For new content

When contributing new content, read through our contribution guidelines, and mark the following action items as completed:

  • I have added a new entry in registry.yaml (and, optionally, in authors.yaml) so that my content renders on the cookbook website.
  • I have conducted a self-review of my content based on the contribution guidelines:
    • Relevance: This content is related to building with OpenAI technologies and is useful to others.
    • Uniqueness: I have searched for related examples in the OpenAI Cookbook, and verified that my content offers new insights or unique information compared to existing documentation.
    • Spelling and Grammar: I have checked for spelling or grammatical mistakes.
    • Clarity: I have done a final read-through and verified that my submission is well-organized and easy to understand.
    • Correctness: The information I include is correct and all of my code executes successfully.
    • Completeness: I have explained everything fully, including all necessary references and citations.

We will rate each of these areas on a scale from 1 to 4, and will only accept contributions that score 3 or higher on all areas. Refer to our contribution guidelines for more details.

paytonison and others added 4 commits August 17, 2025 16:51
Deleted 'how_to_work_with_large_language_models.md' and added 'llms 101.md' with a shorter, more focused overview of large language models. The new article provides a high-level introduction to LLMs, their capabilities, and basic concepts for users.
@Copilot Copilot AI review requested due to automatic review settings August 24, 2025 06:15
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Pull Request Overview

This PR replaces the existing detailed LLM guide with a new, more accessible introductory article focused on making large language model concepts approachable for beginners. The rewrite emphasizes fundamental concepts in a concise, user-friendly format while removing outdated technical details.

  • Introduces a new beginner-friendly article explaining LLM basics, capabilities, and core concepts
  • Removes the previous comprehensive guide that contained outdated model references and dense technical content
  • Streamlines documentation structure to be more welcoming for newcomers

Reviewed Changes

Copilot reviewed 2 out of 2 changed files in this pull request and generated no comments.

File Description
articles/llms-101.md New introductory article providing accessible overview of LLM fundamentals and capabilities
articles/how_to_work_with_large_language_models.md Removal of existing detailed guide with outdated content and technical complexity
Comments suppressed due to low confidence (1)

articles/llms-101.md:7

  • This statement is outdated. ChatGPT was initially built on GPT-3.5, not GPT-3, and has since been upgraded to GPT-4. Consider updating to reflect the current state or use more general language like 'OpenAI's ChatGPT brought this architecture into the spotlight'.
OpenAI’s ChatGPT, built on GPT-3, brought this architecture into the spotlight and kicked off today’s wave of AI applications.

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