AI Agent Context Files: How to Steer Long Projects

Podcast/Substack · ~24 min · Listen

• To leverage AI for “10x more ambitious” long projects, you must continuously steer agents as your understanding evolves, rather than trying to define the entire project upfront and falling into a “graveyard of stale rules.”
• The core problem is that as humans learn and adapt during a project, agents continue to follow outdated instructions from monolithic manuals. This is addressed by separating context into “four kinds of context” (stable rules, current state, map of material, history) which change at different speeds.
• Don’t try to fit the whole job into the first prompt. Instead, use a “Working Context Starter Kit” (four files) to dynamically update agents with your latest thinking, enabling you to start projects you can’t fully describe and adapt along the way.