What Is Agent Context (and the Context Window)?
Agent context is the information a model has in front of it for a given step — the instructions, data and recent history it can reason over — bounded by the context window, the maximum it can hold at once. Managing context is deciding what to put in that window: the right tools, the relevant memory, the current task. Good context management is often what separates an agent that acts coherently from one that loses the thread.
Choosing what the model sees
The context window is finite, so context management is a selection problem: pull the relevant memory, the right tool definitions, the current goal, and leave out the rest. Discovery feeds it (what can be called), memory feeds it (what is known), and the quality of that selection shapes whether the agent’s next action is sensible.
Related standards
Questions
Is context the same as memory?
No. Context is what the model sees this step, within the window; memory is durable state across steps. Context is often assembled by retrieving from memory.
Why does context management matter?
Because the window is finite. Putting the right information in it — and keeping noise out — is much of what makes an agent act coherently.
Keep reading
By Michael Gord · published 2026-10-02 · part of the Agentic Encyclopedia. Dates are the day of publication; events are cited at their own dates.