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May 2, 2026ACE

Context quality matters more than context volume

Observation

Large context windows do not automatically produce better agent behavior. When irrelevant documents, stale state, or unrelated tool outputs enter the prompt surface, planning quality can degrade even as available context increases.

Decision

ACE is built around the premise that context must be ranked, scoped, and pruned before generation.

Field Note Artifact: DBRL-FN-CONTEXT-QUALITY-MATTERS-MORE-THAN-CONTEXT-VOLUME