Context Engineering

The practice of designing systems that provide AI models with the right information, tools, and format at the right time, going beyond simple prompts to create comprehensive information environments for optimal AI performance. Rather than just crafting clever one-line prompts, context engineering involves building dynamic systems that pull together conversation history, relevant documents, user data, and available tools into the AI's context window. Think of it like being a personal assistant to the AI - instead of giving it a task with no background, you provide all the files, previous conversations, and tools it needs to succeed. This is the difference between asking a new employee to 'write a report' versus giving them the research, templates, company guidelines, and access to necessary databases.