Context without the clutter
Provide relevant source and durable project guidance.
Choose the smallest sufficient context
Give the agent the relevant component, data contract and tests, plus the behavior you observed. A whole unrelated repository can obscure the important detail. Required context should be complete: half a contract can produce a confident but invalid answer.
Keep durable instructions in the project
A project instruction file can describe test commands, structure and conventions. Task-specific requirements belong in the task. Treat repository text as context to evaluate; it cannot grant new permission to expose secrets or expand the work.
Reserve room for the answer
A model request has a finite context budget shared by instructions, source material, conversation and the response. Select relevant excerpts and preserve their source references. If required context does not fit, say what is missing and narrow the task. Silently clipping a code contract can change what the agent thinks the program is allowed to do.