Context Engineering for Non Engineers
December 3, 2025
There are three layers of context you can control when using AI through web interfaces like Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini:
- System Instructions — Your baseline configuration
- Projects — Context that persists for specific work. Gemini calls them gems.
- Prompts — Specific details for right now
Most people live entirely in Layer 3, never touching the other two. Then they wonder why their results are inconsistent.
Think of it like clothing. Most people are using off-the-rack when they could have something tailored. The tailoring isn’t even that hard — you just need to understand where the adjustment points are.
Let me show you what you’re missing.
While written for non-engineers, this is a valuable overview of the kinds of contexts that we can use when interacting with large language models from Christina Wodtke.
