Context Engineering in 2026 — Louis-François Bouchard, Omar Solano & Samridhi Vaid, Towards AI
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AI Engineer
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AI Engineer
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Terms in this piece · Glossary
context window — The maximum amount of text a model can consider at once — its working memory for the current conversation or task.
context compaction — Summarizing an agent's earlier conversation to free room in the context window so a long session can keep going.
token — The chunk of text a model reads and writes in — roughly three-quarters of a word — and the unit AI usage is billed in.
AI agent — An AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.
Why it matters
context compactionSummarizing an agent's earlier conversation to free room in the context window so a long session can keep going.Full definition → is a default in most AI agentAn AI system that doesn't just answer once but works toward a goal in a loop — taking actions, reading the results, and deciding what to do next.Full definition → frameworks, and this gives a cost model and a recall number for leaving the history alone instead.
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