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May 9, 2026 · Artificial Intelligence

Why Overly Long Context Files Reduce AI Agent Success by 3% and Raise Token Cost 20%

The article shows that adding redundant context to AI agents like Claude harms efficiency: each extra 50 lines dilutes attention, lowers task success by about 3 % and inflates token usage by roughly 20 %, because the model’s instruction budget is capped at 150‑200 tokens, so context files must be concise and focused on non‑derivable information.