Context engineering is the systematic assembly and structuring of prompts, instructions, history, memory, retrieved information, tools, and output constraints needed for a model to complete a task.
Context engineering is the systematic design of everything a language model receives to complete a task effectively. It extends prompt engineering beyond manually written, single-shot instructions. section 7.6
A designed context can combine:
System instructions, user queries, interaction history, and long-term memory. section 7.6
Retrieved documents, tool definitions, and output-formatting requirements. section 7.6
Decisions about what to include, exclude, structure, and deliver at each point. section 7.6
Many failures arise from irrelevant retrievals, vague instructions, or overloaded memory rather than from the model alone. Clear prompting principles still matter, but they now operate across a dynamic system. section 7.6
How Introduction to Generative AI, Second Edition covers it
How deep it goes
Defines the expanded scope and design decisions, but stops short of implementation procedures or technical internals.
Examples
Uses system instructions, queries, histories, memories, retrieved documents, tool definitions, and formatting constraints as examples.
What it assumes
Builds on prompt engineering while treating clarity, structure, and relevance as system-wide design principles.
What you can do after
Apply it by selecting, excluding, structuring, and timing the information supplied to a language model.
How it connects
Connects prompt engineering with system instructions, memory, retrieval, tools, interaction history, and output formatting.
Build an AI Agent (From Scratch)The discipline of designing which information is provided to a language model, when it is provided, and how it is represented for task completion.
prompt engineeringcontrasts with · Prompt engineering is the deliberate design and refinement of instructions, context, examples, or other inputs to guide an AI model’s behavior or outputs.
agent harnesspart of · An agent harness is the surrounding software, configuration, and execution environment that enables and manages an AI agent’s operation.
context windowuses · A context window is the bounded sequence of tokens or other input information a model can access when processing or generating an output.
AI agentused by · An AI agent is a computational system that uses artificial intelligence to interpret information, select actions, and pursue goals through interaction with an environment.
This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Introduction to Generative AI, Second Edition. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.
