Context & Reliability~12 min

The Context Window: Budgeting a Finite Resource

Understand the size of Claude's context window, how to count tokens before you send, and why packing it full hurts reliability.

What you will be able to do

✓State the standard context window size and that a 1M-token window is available in beta on Claude Sonnet
✓Use the token counting endpoint to budget input before making a billed completion call
✓Explain context rot and why relevance-focused context beats maxing out the window
✓Choose token-saving tactics (trimming, pre-summarizing, retrieving) over indiscriminately sending everything

3 concepts·4 hands-on exercises·3-question check