Context Engineering for AI Agents: What It Is and Why It Changes Everything

Quick Answer: Context engineering is the practice of designing the right information, tools, and structure around an AI agent so it produces reliable, high-quality output. Unlike prompt engineering (optimizing what you ask), context engineering optimizes the conditions under which the agent works. SKILL.md files are context engineering in portable, reusable form. Prompt engineering had its moment. You learned to say "think step by step," add few-shot examples, and structure your requests carefully. It worked - for single-turn tasks. But AI coding agents don't do single-turn tasks.