Definition
Self-consistency prompting runs Chain-of-Thought (CoT) prompting multiple times at temperature 0.7-1.0, then takes the majority answer across runs. Eliminates one-off reasoning errors that any single chain might make. Standard technique for high-stakes math and logic. Costs N times more than single-run CoT but produces measurably better accuracy on hard problems.
Example
Run a math problem 5 times with CoT. Three runs answer 19; two answer 20. Take 19 as the consensus answer.
When to use
High-stakes reasoning, math, logic puzzles, when single CoT isn't reliable enough.
Also known as
self consistency