Context Window Management for LLM Applications
One of the most underestimated challenges in building LLM-powered applications is context window management. You’ve got 128k tokens, but that doesn’t mean you should use them all on every request. The Problem Large context windows create a false sense of abundance. Yes, you can stuff 100k tokens into a request, but you’ll pay for it in: Latency: More tokens = slower responses Cost: You’re billed per token (input and output) Quality degradation: The “lost in the middle” phenomenon is real Practical Patterns 1. Rolling Window with Summary Keep a rolling window of recent conversation, but periodically summarize older context: ...