---
type: Glossary Term
title: Scaffolding
description: Scaffolding is a development technique for AI agents that uses structured templates and specifications to increase the reliability and predictability of agent b
resource: "https://www.contextstudios.ai/glossary/scaffolding"
category: engineering
language: en
timestamp: "2026-04-03T12:03:13.696Z"
---

# Scaffolding

Scaffolding is a development technique for AI agents that uses structured templates and specifications to increase the reliability and predictability of agent behavior. Unlike free-form prompts, scaffolding provides explicit structure for inputs, processing steps, and outputs. This reduces hallucinations, improves reproducibility, and enables verification gates between steps. Scaffolding is a core principle of the GSD Framework and is used in production environments to reliably ship AI agents.