Modelfile Parameters in Ollama

From the Ollama cheat sheet · Modelfile · verified Jul 2026

Modelfile Parameters

Reference for common model parameters and their effects.

bash

# Key parameters for PARAMETER instruction
PARAMETER temperature 0.7    # Creativity (0.0-2.0, default ~0.8)
PARAMETER num_ctx 4096       # Context window size in tokens
PARAMETER top_p 0.9          # Nucleus sampling threshold
PARAMETER top_k 40           # Top-K sampling
PARAMETER repeat_penalty 1.1 # Penalize repetition (1.0 = off)
PARAMETER seed 42            # Reproducible output

💡 temperature 0 gives deterministic output; 1.0+ increases creativity

⚡ Increase num_ctx for longer conversations but be aware of memory limits

📌 Use seed for reproducible responses — same seed + prompt = same output

🟢 stop sequences tell the model when to stop generating text

parametersconfig

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