What is Context Rot?
Quality decay as prompts grow: models follow early instructions worse and miss details buried mid-context. Long builder sessions rot fastest, which is why compaction summarizes stale history instead of carrying everything.
Related terms
Session Compaction
Summarizing long build conversations so work continues within context limits without losing decisions. Compaction plus model lock keeps multi-session projects coherent.
Model Context Window
How much conversation, code, and history a model can consider at once. Long builds need compaction and stable model selection so decisions survive across sessions.
Context Threshold
The input-size line where a provider switches a model to higher long-context pricing. BYOB model configs store the threshold with above-threshold rates, so sessions crossing it pay more per token without changing models.
Temperature
Sampling randomness for generation: low values make output focused and repeatable, high values make it varied and surprising. BYOB chat configs default near 0.5 while tool calls use 0.3 for steadier structured actions.
Thinking Budget
The token allowance reserved for internal model reasoning before answering. Larger budgets suit hard multi-step problems; BYOB prices thinking tokens separately so runaway reasoning shows up in metering.
Structured Output
Forcing model replies into a machine-readable shape such as JSON with fixed fields. Required wherever AI output feeds code, databases, or UI components, since free text breaks parsers the moment formatting drifts.