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Basic Strategy

The basic strategy controls whether the original plugin-generated test cases (without any strategies applied) are included in the final output.

Configuration​

The basic strategy accepts the following configuration options:

OptionTypeDefaultDescription
enabledbooleantrueWhether to include basic test cases

Example​

redteam:
  strategies:
    - id: basic
      config:
        enabled: false # Only run tests with strategies applied
    - id: jailbreak
    - id: multilingual
      config:
        languages: ['es', 'fr']

How it works​

By default, promptfoo will:

  1. Generate test cases from enabled plugins
  2. Apply each strategy to generate additional test cases
  3. Include both the original plugin test cases and strategy-generated test cases

When the basic strategy is disabled (enabled: false), only the strategy-generated test cases will be included in the final output. This can be useful when you want to focus solely on testing specific attack vectors through strategies.

Use cases​

  • Testing strategy effectiveness: Disable basic tests to isolate and evaluate how well your strategies are working
  • Reducing test volume: If you have many plugins and strategies, disabling basic tests can reduce the total number of tests
  • Focused testing: When you specifically want to test how your system handles modified/strategic inputs rather than basic plugin-generated tests