The thing is the relevant context often depends on what it's trying to do. You can give it a lot of context in 16k but if there are too many different types of things then I think it will be confused or at least have less capacity for the actual selected task.
So what I am thinking is that some functions might just be like gateways into a second menu level. So instead of just edit_file with the filename and new source, maybe only select_files_for_edit is available at the top level. In that case I can ensure it doesn't try to overwrite an existing file without important stuff that was already in there, by providing the requested files existing contents along with the function allowing the file edit.
Not sure that’s true. I haven’t completely filled the context with examples but I do provide 8 or so exchanges between user and assistant along with a menu of available commands and it seems to be able to generalize from that very well. No hallucinations either. Good idea about sub menus though, I’ll have to use that.
I think big context only makes sense for document analysis.
For programming you want to keep it slim. Just like you should keep your controllers and classes slim.
Also people with 32k access report very very long response times of up to multiple minutes which is not feasible if you only want a smaller change or analysis.
So what I am thinking is that some functions might just be like gateways into a second menu level. So instead of just edit_file with the filename and new source, maybe only select_files_for_edit is available at the top level. In that case I can ensure it doesn't try to overwrite an existing file without important stuff that was already in there, by providing the requested files existing contents along with the function allowing the file edit.