Episode 21 · Season 1
Context Engineering: The Secret Sauce Behind Great AI Agents
AI agents don’t fail because they’re “not smart enough”, they fail because they’re missing the right context. In this episode of Cirrius Talk, Greg Banks sits down with Tim and Gavin to break down context engineering: the practical evolution beyond prompt engineering that’s shaping modern agent performance. You’ll learn the five core context sources agents draw from (prompts, system instructions, memory, RAG, and external tools) and why smaller, curated context windows often produce the most accurate results.
AI agents don’t fail because they’re “not smart enough”—they fail because they’re missing the right context. In this episode of Cirrius Talk, Greg Banks sits down with Tim and Gavin to break down context engineering: the practical evolution beyond prompt engineering that’s shaping modern agent performance. You’ll learn the five core context sources agents draw from (prompts, system instructions, memory, RAG, and external tools) and why smaller, curated context windows often produce the most accurate results. If you’re building agents in the Salesforce ecosystem—or anywhere—this is your blueprint for making them faster, safer, and more reliable.
Highlights / Takeaways
- 🧠 Context > prompts: prompt engineering evolved—now it’s about managing what the agent knows
- 🧱 5 context types to design for: prompts, system instructions, memory, RAG, and external tools
- 🎯 Less is more: bloated context increases hallucinations and misfires—curate ruthlessly
- 🗂️ RAG is your process-at-scale: SOPs, checklists, and guidelines become agent-ready knowledge
- 🛠️ Tools unlock real work: CRMs, ERPs, weather APIs, and databases turn chat into outcomes
Recommended Links
Send questions to cirriustalk@cirriussolutions.com
We cover
- Types of Context in AI Agents
- Understanding Context Engineering
- User Prompts: The Entry Point
- System Prompts: Building Agent Personality
- RAG Pipeline: Enhancing Contextual Understanding
- Key Takeaways on Context Management
Chapters
- 1:12Types of Context in AI Agents
- 3:19Understanding Context Engineering
- 5:56User Prompts: The Entry Point
- 8:33 System Prompts: Building Agent Personality
- 11:05RAG Pipeline: Enhancing Contextual Understanding
- 14:53Key Takeaways on Context Management
- 16:15External Tools and Data Sources
Resources and downloads
The artifacts Greg’s team built for this episode, free to download.
Context Engineering: The Secret Sauce Behind Great AI Agents
The artifact discusses the concept of AI Agent Context Engineering and explains the components that make up an effective AI agent’s context.
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