https://www.davidlang.tech/tags/context-window/ Recent content in Context-Window on David Lang Hugo en Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.davidlang.tech/posts/context-window-strategies-making-the-most-of-long-context-llms/ Fri, 10 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://www.davidlang.tech/posts/context-window-strategies-making-the-most-of-long-context-llms/ <p>Million-token context windows tempt teams to dump entire repos into prompts. That is expensive, slow, and often less accurate than targeted retrieval.</p> <h2 id="when-full-context-helps">When Full Context Helps</h2> <p>Single-file refactors, analyzing one large document, comparing a few long contracts.</p> <h2 id="when-retrieval-wins">When Retrieval Wins</h2> <p>Whole codebases, ticket backlogs, and wiki sites-embed, filter, rerank, then pass top-k chunks.</p> <h2 id="compression-techniques">Compression Techniques</h2> <p>Summarize conversation history. Use hierarchical memory (session summary + recent turns). Strip comments and generated noise from code context.</p>