[danielhanchen]

Oh no at all!! You can actually convert a model to even generate the <think>...</think> tokens themselves! That's how DeepSeek trained R1 Zero, which essentially made the model have reasoning skills!

[sidkshatriya]

Wont you have to use a distilled DeepThink model then ? Because the training phase with GRPO required to its reasoning within <think></think> for least loss.

[danielhanchen]

Oh no no!! The trick for GRPO is you essentially let the model "learn" how to do reasoning itself!!!

The <think> tokens are optional for formatting reasons. You could use <reasoning> or <thinking> or [reasoning] for example in the system prompt.