Context engineering is the discipline of designing systems that feed LLMs the right information at the right time, addressing the fundamental constraint of finite context windows. It encompasses six interdependent pillars: agents that orchestrate decisions, query augmentation that refines user input, retrieval that connects to external knowledge, prompting that guides reasoning, memory that preserves history, and tools that enable real-world action. Unlike prompt engineering which focuses on phrasing instructions, context engineering builds the architecture around the model, treating the context window as a scarce resource and designing retrieval, memory systems, and tool integrations to maximize signal while avoiding context poisoning, distraction, confusion, and clash.
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But What Is a Context Window? Context Engineering vs. Prompt Engineering The Context Window Challenge The Six Pillars of Context Engineering Example: Building a Real-World Agent with Elysia Conclusion Ready to start building? Don't want to miss another blog post?Sort: