What is a Context Window?
A context window is the maximum amount of text a language model can hold in mind at once, measured in tokens. It includes the prompt, any retrieved sources, and the answer being written. When retrieved pages exceed the window, some content is dropped, so what fits, and where it sits, affects what the model uses.
Why the context window matters
In retrieval-augmented answers, only so much source text fits in the window. Concise, front-loaded pages that state the key fact early are more likely to survive truncation and influence the answer than long pages that bury the point.