AI by Hand ✍️

AI by Hand ✍️

Window Sizing

Working the budget backwards

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

Run the budgeting in reverse: decide how long a conversation must last, and the arithmetic tells you how big a window it needs. Then comes the part the arithmetic does not do for you. Windows come in sizes, and you take the smallest one that fits, so the number you calculated is a floor rather than an answer. Land a little over a size and the next one up is twice the window and twice the price, most of it unused.

Paid members: the worksheet and its printable PDF are below ↓

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