AI Glossary

Context engineering

Deciding what goes into a model's context window at each step (instructions, files, tool results, memory) so an agent has what it needs and nothing that distracts it. Anthropic describes it as the natural progression of prompt engineering.

See also

  • Context window

    The amount of input and output a model can consider at one time, counted in tokens: the conversation so far, any documents, images or other inputs, and the reply it is writing.

  • Prompt engineering

    Writing and refining prompts to get better and more reliable results from a model, for example by giving clear instructions, examples or a required format.

  • Subagent

    An AI agent that another agent starts to handle one part of a task.

  • Long-horizon task

    A task that takes many dependent steps and a long time to finish, such as building a feature or carrying out an investigation.

Source: Anthropic, Effective context engineering for AI agents (2025) (opens in a new tab)

Cite this term.

CC BY 4.0, attribution required.

This term

Orbyt Labs, Context engineering (AI Glossary), Oct 18, 2026. https://www.orbytlabs.ai/orbyt-collective/glossary/context-engineering

The dataset (JSON)

Orbyt Labs Glossaries (Oct 19, 2026), https://www.orbytlabs.ai/glossary#dataset

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