itsual Context Engineering
Overview
The quality of an agent’s output is heavily influenced by the quality and relevance of the context it receives. Treat context as a scarce, high-value resource.
When to Use
- Large or unfamiliar codebases
- Long-running tasks that accumulate history
- When the agent is making incorrect assumptions due to missing information
- When context windows are under pressure
Core Practices
- Load only what is needed for the current step
- Prefer official docs, type definitions, and high-signal files over dumping entire directories
- Summarize or discard low-value history when possible
- Explicitly state key constraints and decisions so they persist
- Use progressive disclosure (high-level first, details on demand)
Techniques
- Start with architecture / entry points, then drill down
- Keep a running “key facts” list for the session
- When stuck, re-state the goal and the most relevant constraints
- Avoid loading large generated files, lockfiles, or binary content unless necessary
Verification
- The agent has the information required to make correct decisions
- Irrelevant or outdated context is not dominating reasoning