Yes, I did end up figuring out a clean way to allow normal reasoning inside <think> and then force JSON _after_ the closing </think>. Example here: https://gist.github.com/noperator/6c711ab19027ea8056442df839...

Thanks for that, and credit to you for the idea, I quickly vibe coded (heh) a working minimal tool calling harness thats allows it to make multiple tool calls each turn. Currently its working pretty damn well all things considered: https://github.com/NickalasLight/VibeHarness.git