context-engineering

name	context-engineering
description	Guidance for designing, auditing, and improving context supplied to LLM agents, prompts, tools, RAG/MCP servers, and multi-agent systems. Use when the task involves context selection, prompt or agent architecture, tool descriptions, retrieval context, memory, compaction, autonomy, or evaluation of LLM behavior.

Context Engineering

A practical guide for choosing, structuring, and evaluating the context supplied to LLM systems. It covers prompts, tool descriptions, retrieval, memory, compaction, autonomy, and agent architecture.

References

#	Principle	File	Summary
1	Quality Over Quantity	01-quality-over-quantity.md	Include only relevant context. Precision beats exhaustiveness.
2	Start Minimal, Layer Progressively	02-start-minimal.md	Begin with essentials, expand based on performance gaps.
3	Hierarchical Context Organization	03-hierarchical-organization.md	Structure context from general to specific. Use XML tags for disambiguation.
4	Multi-Dimensional Context	04-multi-dimensional-context.md	Effective context spans task, domain, history, constraints, motivation, and format.
5	Simple Composable Patterns	05-simple-composable-patterns.md	Prefer prompt chaining, routing, parallelization over complex frameworks.
6	Invest in Tool Design (ACI)	06-invest-in-tool-design.md	Tool descriptions deserve as much effort as UIs. Calibrate action language for Claude 4.6.
7	Match Architecture to Complexity	07-match-architecture-to-complexity.md	Choose the right pattern: chaining, routing, parallelization, orchestrator, or agent.
8	Transparency in Agent Planning	08-transparency-in-planning.md	Show planning steps. Use structured state tracking for long-horizon tasks.
9	Contextualize Retrieved Chunks	09-contextualize-retrieved-chunks.md	Prepend explanatory context before embedding. Reduces retrieval failures by 35-67%.
10	Dynamic Context Adaptation	10-dynamic-context-adaptation.md	Adjust context based on task complexity and model confidence.
11	Meta-Context	11-meta-context.md	Explain why information is provided. Use grounding directives to reduce hallucinations.
12	Ground Agents in Environment Feedback	12-ground-in-environment.md	Use tool results and human checkpoints, not just model reasoning.
13	Test and Measure Systematically	13-test-and-measure.md	A/B test context variations. Measure accuracy, latency, reasoning quality.
14	Retrieve Generously, Filter Late	14-retrieve-generously.md	Top-20 chunks outperform top-5. Don't over-filter prematurely.
15	Avoid Common Anti-Patterns	15-anti-patterns.md	Don't dump everything, over-abstract, overengineer, or inherit stale aggressive prompts.
16	Guide Model Thinking	16-guide-model-thinking.md	Control reasoning depth with adaptive thinking. Prevent overthinking on simple tasks.
17	Multi-Window State Management	17-multi-window-state.md	Externalize state for tasks spanning multiple context windows.
18	Calibrate Autonomy and Safety	18-calibrate-autonomy.md	Tune action thresholds. Claude 4.6 defaults to high autonomy; set guardrails.