AI mechanics

Context Window

Everything the model can see this turn, and it has a budget.

Each turn the system assembles one packet: the provider's instructions, your instructions, whatever memory surfaced, the conversation so far, anything pasted, anything fetched. The model reads the packet and forgets it.

It degrades long before it is full, and information in the middle of a long packet gets used least reliably. More context is not better.

Also called: context, the packet, window, context length.

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Learn this in AI 101

1.2Everything it knows right now is one packet.
1.3The packet has a budget, and it degrades before it's full.