llm is not a deterministic program. the same model won't even return deterministic answer. what's the point keep the model freezed?

if you want deterministic returns, you should set the temperature to 0 to get the best possibility of deterministic.

Strict determinism is a different, but related, issue.

E.g. if I've written a role playing character using a specific model I may want to pin the character to that model until I've been able to test the model being "better" doesn't affect the feel of the character before switching. That doesn't mean I need the character's responses to be completely deterministic, but that doesn't imply I'm fine with the character having a different quality or feel of response just because the new model is out.

It'd be nice if there was a more explicit way to signal in the request "I want what you think is best per dollar for this class of answer" vs "I want this model to answer".