What does 'context window' refer to in the context of Claude AI models?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Think of the context window as the whiteboard Claude can see. Everything you send in plus what it writes back has to fit on that board, so it’s the maximum token capacity for one API call.
Full Explanation
A context window defines the total token capacity for a single API call, encompassing all input tokens (system prompt, conversation history, user messages, documents) plus the output tokens generated. Claude's context windows are measured in tokens, where roughly 4 characters equals 1 token for English text. The graphical interface window used to interact with Claude confuses context window with UI concepts. The number of previous conversations Claude remembers across sessions is wrong because Claude does NOT have persistent memory across sessions by default — each API call is stateless. The time limit for a single API request before it times out describes request timeouts, which are separate infrastructure concerns unrelated to context windows.