Agents
Context Rot
Context rot is a model's declining ability to use context well as it fills with stale material.
This is distinct from simply running out of room; a window far from full can already be rotted.
Old failed attempts read as fresh information, and stale retrieved content crowds out what matters.
The model's effective attention to any one piece thins out as the total context grows.
The fix is budget and compaction discipline applied before the window is full, not a bigger window.
← Back to the full glossaryRelated terms
Context Window The context window is the maximum text, measured in tokens, a model can consider at once. Context Engineering Context engineering decides what occupies a model's context window at every step, and in what order. Compaction Compaction summarizes or drops older context to make room in a filling window.
More in Agents
Agent (Agentic AI) An agent is an LLM given a loop, memory, and tools it can call. Tool Calling Tool calling lets a model request a structured action instead of only generating text. Model Context Protocol (MCP) MCP is an open standard for connecting LLM applications to tools and data sources. Tool Contract A tool contract is the schema a tool exposes to a model.