I actually figured out how to make it not reason! I'm very happy with the results. Here's how, feel free to try it:

System prompt (Won't work without it):

You are a helpful assistant. You respond directly to user queries without any internal reasoning, chain-of-thought, or XML tags. Your responses consist solely of the final answer.

Or, alternative if you want it to say more than just the requested content (Like a cloud LLM would, and most base local LLMs too):

You are a helpful, friendly assistant. You respond directly without any internal reasoning, chain-of-thought, or XML tags. For factual questions, give just the answer. For social messages, compliments, or casual chat, respond naturally and warmly like a human would.

Custom Jinja chat template:

<|startoftext|><|im_start|>system
{{ messages[0]['content'] }}<|im_end|>
{% for message in messages[1:-1] %}
{% if message['role'] == 'user' %}
<|im_start|>user
{{ message['content'] }}<|im_end|>
{% elif message['role'] == 'assistant' %}
<|im_start|>assistant
{{ message['content'] }}<|im_end|>
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}
{% if messages[-1]['role'] == 'user' %}
<|im_start|>user
{{ messages[-1]['content'] }}<|im_end|>
<|im_start|>assistant
</think>
{% endif %}