# effective prompting

Published articles for effective prompting.

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## The 3 Roles of Context for AI Agents

DevFeed: [The 3 Roles of Context for AI Agents](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/the-3-roles-of-context-for-ai-agents-55005.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.nngroup.com/articles/3-agent-context-roles/>)

Author: Tanner Kohler

Published: 2026-09-18T17:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [NN/g latest articles and announcements](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/nn-g-latest-articles-and-announcements.md>)

Topics: [context](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/context.md>), [AI Agent](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai-agent.md>), [Artificial Intelligence](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ai.md>), [Claude](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/claude.md>)

Tags: [3-roles-of-context](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/3-roles-of-context.md>), [agent-skills](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agent-skills.md>), [agentic-ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agentic-ai.md>), [ai](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai.md>), [ai-agent-context](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-agent-context.md>), [ai-agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-agents.md>), [ai-context-types](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-context-types.md>), [ai-memory](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-memory.md>), [ai-power-users](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-power-users.md>), [ai-workflows](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ai-workflows.md>), [ambient-context](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ambient-context.md>), [api-keys](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/api-keys.md>), [article](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/article.md>), [better-prompts](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/better-prompts.md>), [claude](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/claude.md>), [claude-power-users](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/claude-power-users.md>), [context-curation](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/context-curation.md>), [context-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/context-engineering.md>), [context-for-ai-agents](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/context-for-ai-agents.md>), [context-library](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/context-library.md>), [effective-prompting](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/effective-prompting.md>), [email](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/email.md>), [global-context](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/global-context.md>), [local-context](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/local-context.md>), [markdown-files](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/markdown-files.md>), [mcp](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mcp.md>), [mcp-connections](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mcp-connections.md>), [model-context-protocol](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/model-context-protocol.md>), [persistent-memory](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/persistent-memory.md>), [prompt-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/prompt-engineering.md>), [prompting](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/prompting.md>), [slack](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/slack.md>), [streams](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/streams.md>), [types-of-ai-context](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/types-of-ai-context.md>), [user-profile-memory](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/user-profile-memory.md>)

### AI overview

The article explains three roles that context plays for AI agents: global information that shapes behavior across interactions, local information scoped to a task or project, and ambient raw streams such as email and meeting transcripts. It argues that curating context is central to obtaining useful, user- and business-relevant agent outputs.

### Source excerpt

AI-agent power users curate 3 kinds of context: global (across tasks), local (task-specific), and ambient (raw streams like email).