# Token efficiency: getting more signal into the context window

DevFeed: [Token efficiency: getting more signal into the context window](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/token-efficiency-getting-more-signal-into-the-context-window-4856.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://redis.io/blog/token-efficiency-signal-context-window/>)

Author: Jim Allen Wallace

Published: 2026-07-01T00:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Redis Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/redis-blog.md>)

Topics: [long-context](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/long-context.md>), [Transformer](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/transformer.md>), [Large Language Model](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/llm.md>), [Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/retrieval-augmented-generation-rag.md>)

Tags: [agentic](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentic.md>), [context-window](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/context-window.md>), [efficiency](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/efficiency.md>), [generation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/generation.md>), [hallucinations](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/hallucinations.md>), [llms](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/llms.md>), [rag](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/rag.md>), [reasoning](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/reasoning.md>), [tech-de](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tech-de.md>), [tokens](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/tokens.md>), [transformers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/transformers.md>)

## AI overview

This guide explains why adding more context can worsen model performance. It examines token efficiency, the "lost in the middle" effect, context rot, attention limits in transformers, and the gap between advertised and effective context windows, with implications for RAG and agentic systems.

## Source excerpt

You've probably hit this counterintuitive moment: you give your model more context to work with, expecting better answers, and the answers get worse. More tokens were supposed to mean more information, more grounding, fewer hallucinations. Instead, yo...