The Context Bucket: Handling Long Documents

“I pasted my whole thesis and it forgot the beginning!”

We’ve all been there. You have a massive document, you feed it to the AI, and it hallucinates or ignores half of it. This happens because every AI has a limit. It’s not infinite; it has a Context Window.

In this guide, we will visualize the AI’s memory as a “Bucket” and learn how to manage it.

1. The Bucket Limit

Think of the AI’s memory as a bucket. Every word you type (and every word it replies) takes up space. In AI terms, we measure this space in Tokens (chunks of words). * If the bucket holds 4,000 tokens and you pour in 5,000, the first 1,000 spill out. The AI literally “forgets” them.

2. Strategies for Long Texts

How do you summarize a 50-page report if it doesn’t fit?

Chunking

Break it down. * Step 1: “I am going to give you this report in 3 parts. Do not reply yet. Just say ‘Acknowledged’.” * Step 2: Paste Part 1. * Step 3: Paste Part 2… * Step 4: “Now summarize all 3 parts.”

The “Reset”

If a chat gets too long, the bucket fills up with old conversation history. * The Fix: Start a new chat. A fresh chat means an empty bucket.

3. Visualizing the Tokens

Look at the Token Bucket on the right.

See how the text turns into “liquid” tokens? Watch what happens when it overflows. The “Oldest” information (at the bottom) is pushed out first. This is why long conversations degrade over time.

Master Class Complete

You have mastered the Prompt Lab. You can iterate, roleplay, and manage memory. Now, let’s turn our attention to the dark side: The Bias Radar.