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Technical implementation · AI Search Infrastructure

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Definition

Context assembly is the process of selecting, ordering, and inserting retrieved chunks into the context window the language model uses to generate a response. The assembled context, combined with the query, is what the model conditions its output on. Context assembly is not a neutral operation. The order in which chunks are placed in the context window affects how much attention the model pays to each one — a consequence of the lost-in-the-middle position bias. A chunk that retrieves well and ranks well in reranking can still have reduced influence if it lands in the middle of a long assembled context. Content that front-loads its answer is more robust to position effects because the key claim appears near the chunk boundary rather than buried within it.

Context rot

Lost in the middle

Reranking

Context window

Retrieval pipeline

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