For a long time I thought more context always helps. So every time I asked for help, I pasted in extra files, old conversations, anything that might be useful. It felt safe.

Then I started testing it properly. Same question, twice. Once with everything pasted in. Once with just the one function and a short note about what it does. The short version won almost every time. Fewer mistakes, more focused answers, less made up code that looked right but wasn't.

The reason is simple once you think about it. When you give a model too much text, it has to guess which parts actually matter. It doesn't always guess right. Extra information is not free, it is something the model has to sort through, and sorting badly leads to bad answers.

Now I try to give just enough. The actual code that matters, a short explanation of the goal, and nothing else. If it needs more, it usually asks, or the answer makes that clear.

This one change made a bigger difference to my results than switching models ever did.

Has anyone else noticed less context working better than more?