Context Builder & Orchestration
Assembling the right context before the model runs — context compilers, budgets, KV-cache, and MCP federation.
11 articles
What Breaks Prompt Caching: The Stable Prefix Contract
How prompt cache keys are derived across Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, vLLM, and SGLang, and the six agent mistakes that silently break the stable prefix.
Memory MCP Servers Compared: 13 Real Options
Memory MCP servers compared: thirteen named options across knowledge-graph, vector, Markdown, and SQL storage, with pricing, and filtered by the local-first vs hosted decision.
Stateless MCP: Where Agent Memory Lives Now
The MCP 2026-07-28 release candidate deletes protocol sessions, the Mcp-Session-Id header, and the handshake. Agent memory moves to an external store.
Context Budgeting: Zones, Allocation & Eviction
Context budgeting allocates finite agent tokens across system, tools, retrieval, history, outputs, and response buffer.
Context Optimizer: Cache, Budget & Placement
Context optimization for AI agents unifies KV-cache hit rate, prefix stability, token budget, latency, cost, and placement into one runtime decision.
Context Compiler vs Orchestration
Where flow control ends and window assembly begins: the boundary between orchestrator and context compiler in LLM agent systems.
Deterministic vs LLM Context Assembly
Deterministic context assembly improves cacheability and auditability; LLM-directed assembly adds adaptivity. Most agent systems need both.
Context Engineering Needs a Compiler
Context engineering is the discipline. The context compiler is the per-turn runtime layer that ranks, budgets, secures, and assembles each model call.
Memory MCP: How to Give AI Agents Persistent Memory
Memory MCP servers explained: what they are, how to choose one by where data lives and what it does, and how to install so an agent remembers across sessions.
Federated MCP: How MCP Federation Works in 2026
MCP federation in 2026: what gateways and the June 2025 spec solved for running multiple MCP servers, and which problems, like auth propagation, remain open.
Prompt-Cache Keys: Stable Prefix, KV-Cache Hit Rate
How prompt-cache keys are canonicalized, why a stable prefix decides your KV-cache hit rate, and what each provider actually discounts on a cache read.