--- schema: 1 type: video title: 'Context Is the New Code — Patrick Debois, Tessl' description: >- As AI coding agents become more capable, context is starting to matter as much as code. Yet while code has version control, review, testing, CI/CD, and production observability, the prompts, rules, and memory that drive agents are still often managed like ad hoc hacks. Patrick argues that context needs its own engineering discipline. He introduces the Context Development Lifecycle: Generate, Evaluate, Distribute, and Observe, along with the team practices that make context a shared, repeatable, and improvable part of software delivery. The session also explores the larger context flywheel, where better context leads to better agent output, which creates better observations, which in turn improves context again. Speaker info: - https://x.com/patrickdebois - https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickdebois/ Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction to the talk 1:14 - Why context is the new code 2:37 - Introducing the Context Development Lifecycle 3:50 - Generate: Creating context for agents 6:26 - Evaluate: Testing your context 13:59 - Distribute: Sharing and packaging context 17:49 - Observe: Monitoring and feedback loops 22:33 - Conclusion and the context flywheel 24:49 - Q&A session --- Watch along with the corrected transcript, summary, timestamps and resources on this talk's official AIE page: https://ai.engineer/talks/bSG9wUYaHWU-context-is-the-new-code Join our upcoming AI Engineer conferences (see https://ai.engineer landing page): - AIEi Shanghai, November 5–6 — the first for meeting top Chinese labs and engineers - AIE CODE in SF, November 10–12 — the top AI Coding conference returns - AIEi Sydney, December 7–8 — the first AIEi run alongside NeurIPS 2026 in Sydney --- canonical: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU' markdown: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU.md' llms: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU/llms.txt' parent: 'https://liquidgold.cc/channel/aidotengineer.md' channel: aidotengineer updated: '2026-10-24T14:17:25.667Z' language: null children: [] videoId: bSG9wUYaHWU durationSeconds: 1634 publishedAt: '2026-05-03T14:00:06.000Z' searchChunks: - ordinal: 0 text: null startSeconds: 91 endSeconds: 157 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=91' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 1 text: null startSeconds: 91 endSeconds: 157 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=91' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 2 text: null startSeconds: 167 endSeconds: 232 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=167' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 3 text: null startSeconds: 243 endSeconds: 387 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=243' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 4 text: null startSeconds: 243 endSeconds: 387 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=243' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 5 text: null startSeconds: 243 endSeconds: 387 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=243' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 6 text: null startSeconds: 399 endSeconds: 504 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=399' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 7 text: null startSeconds: 399 endSeconds: 504 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=399' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 8 text: null startSeconds: 399 endSeconds: 504 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=399' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 9 text: null startSeconds: 514 endSeconds: 605 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=514' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 10 text: null startSeconds: 616 endSeconds: 706 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=616' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 11 text: null startSeconds: 717 endSeconds: 843 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=717' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 12 text: null startSeconds: 717 endSeconds: 843 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=717' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 13 text: null startSeconds: 854 endSeconds: 1080 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=854' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 14 text: null startSeconds: 854 endSeconds: 1080 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=854' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 15 text: null startSeconds: 854 endSeconds: 1080 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=854' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 16 text: null startSeconds: 854 endSeconds: 1080 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=854' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 17 text: null startSeconds: 1092 endSeconds: 1353 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=1092' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 18 text: null startSeconds: 1092 endSeconds: 1353 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=1092' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 19 text: null startSeconds: 1092 endSeconds: 1353 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=1092' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 20 text: null startSeconds: 1363 endSeconds: 1489 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=1363' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 21 text: null startSeconds: 1363 endSeconds: 1489 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=1363' heldReason: rights - ordinal: 22 text: null startSeconds: 1499 endSeconds: 1634 watch: 'https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU?t=1499' heldReason: rights --- # Context Is the New Code — Patrick Debois, Tessl As AI coding agents become more capable, context is starting to matter as much as code. Yet while code has version control, review, testing, CI/CD, and production observability, the prompts, rules, and memory that drive agents are still often managed like ad hoc hacks. Patrick argues that context needs its own engineering discipline. He introduces the Context Development Lifecycle: Generate, Evaluate, Distribute, and Observe, along with the team practices that make context a shared, repeatable, and improvable part of software delivery. The session also explores the larger context flywheel, where better context leads to better agent output, which creates better observations, which in turn improves context again. Speaker info: - https://x.com/patrickdebois - https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickdebois/ Timestamps: 0:00 - Introduction to the talk 1:14 - Why context is the new code 2:37 - Introducing the Context Development Lifecycle 3:50 - Generate: Creating context for agents 6:26 - Evaluate: Testing your context 13:59 - Distribute: Sharing and packaging context 17:49 - Observe: Monitoring and feedback loops 22:33 - Conclusion and the context flywheel 24:49 - Q\&A session --- Watch along with the corrected transcript, summary, timestamps and resources on this talk's official AIE page: https://ai.engineer/talks/bSG9wUYaHWU-context-is-the-new-code Join our upcoming AI Engineer conferences (see https://ai.engineer landing page): - AIEi Shanghai, November 5–6 — the first for meeting top Chinese labs and engineers - AIE CODE in SF, November 10–12 — the top AI Coding conference returns - AIEi Sydney, December 7–8 — the first AIEi run alongside NeurIPS 2026 in Sydney --- Canonical: https://liquidgold.cc/watch/bSG9wUYaHWU · Channel: [AI Engineer](https://liquidgold.cc/channel/aidotengineer.md) > Search chunk text is held until public-source provenance is verified. ## Document chunks > Missing: no stored document chunks are available.