# context-engineering

Use when writing, editing, or optimizing commands, skills, or sub-agent prompts. Provides deep understanding of context mechanics in agent systems.

**The Anatomy of Context:**

| Component               | Role                          | Key Insight                                              |
| ----------------------- | ----------------------------- | -------------------------------------------------------- |
| **System Prompts**      | Core identity and constraints | Balance specificity vs flexibility ("right altitude")    |
| **Tool Definitions**    | Available actions             | Poor descriptions force guessing; optimize with examples |
| **Retrieved Documents** | Domain knowledge              | Use just-in-time loading, not pre-loading                |
| **Message History**     | Conversation state            | Can dominate context in long tasks                       |
| **Tool Outputs**        | Action results                | Up to 83.9% of total context usage                       |

**Key Principles:**

* **Attention Budget** - Context is finite; every token depletes the budget
* **Progressive Disclosure** - Load information only when needed
* **Quality over Quantity** - Smallest high-signal token set wins
* **Lost-in-Middle Effect** - Critical info at start/end, not middle

**Practical Patterns:**

* File-system based access for progressive disclosure
* Hybrid strategies (pre-load some, load rest on-demand)
* Explicit context budgeting with compaction triggers


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