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Software Engineering vocabulary · Machine Learning and Data Processing

Context window

Meaning in software engineering, with examples

nounCore term

In software engineering, context window means: The maximum amount of text, measured in tokens, that a language model can take into account at once, including the prompt, any documents and its own answer.

In Turkish: bağlam penceresi

How it is used

Described by its size: a 128k context window, a long context window. When a conversation grows longer than the window, the oldest parts must be cut or summarized. Also called context length.

Example sentences

  1. The whole contract fits in the context window, so we don't need to split it.

  2. Answer quality drops when we fill the last part of the context window.

Common collocations

  • context window size
  • long context window
  • fit in the context window
  • 128k context window
  • tokenA string of characters that proves a user or app has already logged in or has permission. It is sent with each request instead of a password.
  • LLMShort for large language model: a very large neural network trained on huge amounts of text to predict the next token, which lets it answer questions, write, summarize and code.
  • promptThe text or other input given to a generative model to tell it what to do, such as a question, an instruction or a few examples followed by a task.
  • RAGShort for retrieval-augmented generation: a method in which a system first searches a document collection for relevant passages and then gives them to an LLM to write the answer.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Machine Learning and Data Processing

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