Context Window
The maximum number of tokens a model can consider at once — prompt, documents, and its own answer combined.
The context window is the model’s working memory for a single request. Everything must fit: system prompt, chat history, attached files, and the response. Exceed it and the earliest content is dropped or the call fails. Note that a large window is not the same as good recall inside it — models still lose track of the middle.
In practice: A 200K window holds roughly a 500-page book — but the answer must fit in there too.
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