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What is Context Window?

Technical Glossary term: Context Window
Short Answer

The maximum amount of text a model can process in a single interaction.

The context window (also called context length) is the maximum number of tokens that a language model can process in a single interaction. This includes both the input prompt and the generated output.

Key considerations:

  • Token limits: Different models have different maximum context lengths
  • Memory constraints: Longer context requires more computational resources
  • Cost implications: Longer context typically costs more to process
  • Performance trade-offs: Very long context may reduce response quality

⚙️ Technical Details

Context windows range from a few thousand tokens (GPT-3) to hundreds of thousands of tokens (GPT-4 Turbo). When approaching the limit, consider summarizing or truncating less important information.