Window Occupancy

System prompt, user, model

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

Three things share the window: the system prompt, everything the user has sent, and everything the model has written back. They draw on one budget, so a longer system prompt leaves less room for the conversation, and every token the model writes is a token the next turn cannot use. Marking the three separately shows where the space went; what is left over is the room the next turn has to work in.

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⬇ Window Occupancy worksheet (2 pages)

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Next:
3. Growth per Turn