Q: Structure beats dumps

Use XML tags or clear sections ( , , ). Models parse structured segments more reliably than markdown blobs.

Question 1

Beyond prompt wording

Accepted Answer

Prompt engineering optimizes one instruction. Context engineering optimizes the entire inference environment: history, RAG chunks, tool outputs, system rules, and state.

Question 2

Million-token windows do not fix rot

Accepted Answer

Recall degrades as context grows (“context rot”). Long windows reduce truncation but not attention decay—still curate aggressively.

Question 3

Stable prefix for caching

Accepted Answer

Keep system prompts and tool definitions identical across calls. Reordering context every turn throws away 75–90% prompt-cache savings.

Question 4

Structure beats dumps

Accepted Answer

Use XML tags or clear sections (, , ). Models parse structured segments more reliably than markdown blobs.

Context Engineering (2025-2026)