S3E1 Context Engineering 101

What this lesson is about

Every time you open a new AI chat, it starts knowing nothing about you. Without that background it gives generic answers that sound confident but rarely fit your situation. In this lesson you start building a personal context file, a plain text document that tells any AI who you are, how you work, and what kind of help you actually want. This is the first step in building your own toolkit of files that work with any AI you use, now or later.

What you'll be able to do

• I can explain why giving AI context about me changes the quality of its output.
• I can explain what context engineering is and why it represents a step beyond prompt engineering.
• I can create a personal .md file and add my first "Start Here" context block to it.
• I can save my file using a storage method I can access next week.

A little background

Prompt engineering, which you practised in Season 2, is about choosing the right words for a single chat. Context engineering is bigger. It is the work of organising files and instructions so the AI starts every exchange with a map of who you are and how to help you, rather than guessing. The folder of files you build to do this is called a harness, and today you create its entry point, a file called README.md.

Keep everything anonymous. Do not share your real name, your school, or your location with the AI. Your interests, subjects, and preferences are all fine to share.