Browse all 9 articles in this open-source series. Nine Context Mode guides: evidence retrieval, controlled setup, lexical ranking, performance evaluation and retention. Source-available under Elastic-2.0; not a permissive-license claim.
Featured starting point
Understand what Context Mode moves out of a conversation, how retrieval differs from compression, and why context savings need a task-level check.
Suggested learning path
01 → 09
Understand what Context Mode moves out of a conversation, how retrieval differs from compression, and why context savings need a task-level check.
Use explicit ctx_index and ctx_search calls with invented release notes, known answers and a missing-fact check before connecting real project data.
Check Node requirements, package version, diagnostics and host routing as separate acceptance gates for a controlled local Context Mode installation.
Trace ContentStore, SessionDB and auto-memory through searchAllSources, including partial failures, timestamp assumptions and project filtering.
Follow the two lexical matchers, rank fusion key, bounded reranking and conditional fuzzy retry in ContentStore rather than assuming generic vector search.
Build a controlled evaluation that does not confuse advertised context reductions with token billing, retrieval quality or end-to-end task speed.
Distinguish child-process controls from OS isolation, inspect environment inheritance, and plan explicit session or project retention without accidental deletion.
Compare repeated evidence retrieval with direct tool output and curated summaries using a fixed debugging task instead of a generic feature leaderboard.
Design a small project that tests retrieval correctness, byte boundaries, source updates and session scope without turning speculative improvements into release claims.
