The definition that ties it together

Pulling the threads together, the articles converge on this definition:

Context engineering is the discipline of designing and building dynamic systems that provide the right information and tools, in the right format, at the right time, to give an LLM everything it needs to accomplish a task.

Four parts of that definition are worth dwelling on, because they are what separate context engineering from prompt engineering:

1. It is a system, not a string. A prompt is static text. Context is the output of a system that runs before the main model call, assembling what is needed.
2. It is dynamic. The context is built on the fly for each request. One request might need calendar data, another might need a web search.
3. It is about the right information and tools at the right time. The goal is not to dump everything in. It is to provide knowledge and capabilities only when they are useful. The old saying "garbage in, garbage out" applies directly.
4. Format matters. A clean summary beats a raw data dump. A clear tool definition beats a vague instruction. How you present information changes how well the model uses it.