AI by Hand ✍️

AI by Hand ✍️

Context Tax

Paying for the Past

Prof. Tom Yeh's avatar
Prof. Tom Yeh
Aug 19, 2026
∙ Paid

Library › Context Problems

  1. The Context Window

  2. Window Occupancy

  3. Growth per Turn

  4. Remaining Space

  5. Turn Budget

  6. Retrieval Footprint

  7. Retrieval per Turn

  8. Search Rounds

  9. Window Sizing

  10. Truncation

  11. Compaction

  12. The Compaction Bill

  13. Compacted Retrieval

  14. The Compaction Threshold

  15. Verbatim Tail

  16. Stateless API

  17. Retrieval Cost

  18. Context Tax

  19. Quadratic Cost

  20. Cost Forecast

Each turn's bill has two halves, and they behave differently. The answer is the same size every turn, so its half never moves. The input is the whole conversation so far, so it grows by a fixed step, and its half grows with it. Three turns in, the input half has tripled while the output half has not shifted a cent.

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