What a context window is
description
The context window is the total amount of text (measured in tokens) a model can consider at once for a given request — the system prompt, conversation history, tool definitions, tool results, and any attached documents all share this one budget.
how it works
Every input token and every output token generated in a turn counts against the same window. Once a conversation's accumulated tokens approach the window's limit, older content must be trimmed, summarized, or dropped, or the request will fail or be truncated.
source note
General mechanism described qualitatively; exact numeric token-limit figures per model/tier were not independently re-verified this session, so no specific number is asserted here.
provenance
created 2026-07-02 08:26:58 · JSON