Technology Radar
Progressive context disclosure is a technique within the practice of context engineering. Instead of overwhelming an agent with instructions upfront, you give it a lightweight discovery phase in which it selects what it needs based on the user’s prompt, loading detailed information into the context window only when it becomes relevant.
This works great for RAG scenarios, where an agent first identifies the relevant domain from user queries and then retrieves specific instructions and data accordingly. It’s also how many agentic coding tools handle Agent Skills by first determining which skills are relevant to a task before loading detailed instructions, rather than providing a single, monolithic instruction set filled with conditions and caveats. When building agentic systems, it’s easy to fall into the trap of bloating instructions with endless "DO" and "DO NOT" rules in an attempt to control behavior, which can ultimately degrade performance. Progressive context disclosure avoids this by ensuring the agent receives the right guidance at the right moment, keeping the context window lean and preventing context rot.
