Context is not decoration - it changes the content
A prompt is what you ask once. Context is what rides along with every question after it. Confusing the two is the most common context-engineering mistake we see, and it is easy to fix.
A parent in one of our workshops kept calling her daughter's About Me card "her prompt." Small mix-up, but it is the single most common context-engineering mistake we see, and it is worth untangling properly, because getting it backwards leads to writing the wrong thing in the wrong place.
A prompt is the question asked right now. Context is the information that should shape every question, asked or not. Confuse them, and a child ends up either retyping their whole context every single time, or leaving out a question entirely because they think the card already covers it.
What is the difference between context and a prompt?
"Explain why the moon changes shape, in four sentences, with one comparison from real life." One-time. Applies to this message only.
"Class 6 student. Hints, not answers. No words I have not met yet." Standing. Applies to this and every future message until it is changed.
A useful test: if removing a line changes only the answer you get right now, it belongs in the prompt. If removing it should change every future answer too, it belongs in the context.
Why context is not decoration
It is tempting to treat context as scene-setting - polite background that makes an answer feel personalised without actually changing it. It is not decoration. Ask the same question with a Class 6 context and with a forty-year-old chef's context, and the vocabulary, the length, the examples and the level of assumed knowledge all move. The content itself changes, not just the tone.
The failure mode this causes
When children put context inside every prompt, they end up with enormous, repetitive questions and eventually give up and drop the context altogether, which is worse than never having written it. When they put prompt-only details - "exactly four sentences," "today's specific topic" - into the standing context instead, every future answer for weeks comes back stuck at four sentences whether that fits the question or not.
The fix is not clever. It is just sorting: standing facts about who you are go in context, once. Everything specific to the question you are asking right now goes in the prompt, every time. That sorting is level 3 of this pathway in one sentence, and it is also where level 4 picks up - because once context tells the AI who your child is, the next question is whether it can also read what your child actually wrote.
Questions we get asked
What is the difference between context and a prompt?
A prompt is the specific question or instruction for the current message. Context is standing information - who you are, how you like answers, any fixed rules - that should apply to every message in the conversation without being retyped. A simple test: if a detail should change every future answer, it belongs in context; if it only matters for this one question, it belongs in the prompt.
Is context just extra politeness, or does it change the actual answer?
It changes the actual content, not just the tone. The same question asked with a Class 6 student's context versus a professional adult's context comes back with different vocabulary, different length, and different examples - the substance shifts, which is why context should never be treated as decorative.
What happens if you mix up context and prompt details?
Putting standing facts into every prompt makes questions long and repetitive until a child gives up on writing them. Putting one-off prompt details into the standing context makes every future answer stuck with a rule - like a fixed length - that no longer fits later questions. Sorting the two correctly avoids both problems.