Keep Context in the Right World

Wed, 23 Sep 2026 05:00:21 +0100

The task belongs to Project A: backend PostgreSQL, test command pytest, migration complete. Project B lives beside it: backend SQLite, test command npm test, migration pending. The agent’s context holds both projects’ configs, both READMEs, both migration notes — every item authoritative in its own world, fresh, accurately represented, and semantically similar enough that retrieval surfaced all of it. The agent runs npm test in Project A, watches it fail for reasons that have nothing to do with Project A’s code, and then debugs the backend mismatch by reasoning about SQLite — quoting Project B’s migration state as though it constrains Project A’s deployment. No attacker exists. No stale data entered. No authority was violated. The context was correct, current, and legitimate in every way except the one that mattered: half of it belonged to another world.

Contamination on Programmer.ie: Modern AI programming

Keep Context in the Right World