Ollie Fritz

Small-c context: talking about AI without the jargon getting in the way

Context, tools, capabilities: AI frameworks have claimed the words we use to describe agents. Here's the small-c convention I use to keep them apart.

Written by
ollie
in thoughts

One thing I've found hard in recent months is talking about general concepts without tripping over words that now mean something specific in AI. A few that keep causing confusion:

  • “We need to review the context this agent operates in.” I mean the overall environment, not its Context window.
  • “Review the tools this agent can use.” I mean everything it can call on, not just its Tools.
  • “We need to define the capabilities this agent will need.” Again, overall functionality, not just PydanticAI Capabilities, even if we're using that framework.

My fix is to use “small-x” for the general concept and keep the capital for the mechanism: “small-c context” is the environment, “capital-C Context” is the context window. Same for “small-s skills” and “capital-S Skills”. It's borrowed from small-c conservative, and once explained it works well in conversation. Not had to use “small-a AI” yet, but I am sure I will at some point.