context-engineering

Context engineering is the practice of deliberately curating what an AI agent sees, when it sees it, and how it's structured. It prevents hallucinations from too little context and loss of focus from too much, ensuring sharper, reliable results.

You structure Claude agent context by loading persistent rules files for project-wide guidelines, applying per-feature spec or architecture docs for decisions, and preloading relevant source files to guide the current task.

You should tune agent context during session start, task switches, or when output quality declines. Reloading rules, specs, and relevant source files at these points ensures the agent adheres to project conventions.

Hierarchical context layering works by structuring project-wide rules, per-task specs, and specific source file references separately, then loading them per-task so the agent receives only the necessary, focused information.

Yes, you can enforce project conventions in Claude by applying explicit rules files and preloading relevant source file references, ensuring the agent safely and consistently adheres to your established coding standards.

The best way to prevent agent hallucinations is context engineering: deliberately curating and loading explicit rules, architecture specs, and relevant source files so the agent has the exact project information needed.