Why Technical Writers Need to Understand Context Engineering

No longer limited to producing docs for human readers — now we're also producing content for machines that read, summarize, and act on our words

Artificial intelligence is changing how we create, manage, and deliver information. For technical writers, that means our jobs are no longer limited to producing documents for human readers — we’re now also producing content for machines that read, summarize, and act on our words.

The emerging discipline that bridges this gap is called context engineering — and understanding it will soon be as essential as knowing structured authoring or reuse strategy.

What Is Context Engineering?

Context engineering is the practice of designing what an AI system “knows” before it responds. It’s the deliberate organization, selection, and management of the context window — the collection of data, documents, instructions, and memory an AI model uses to do its job.

In short, prompt engineering is what you say to an AI model. Context engineering is what the model knows when you say it.

A well-designed context gives an AI assistant everything it needs: the right information, the right tone, and the right constraints. A poorly designed one leads to hallucinations, misinformation, and broken trust.

Related: Context Engineering: Going Beyond Prompt Engineering and RAG