You give an agent context by helping it find and remember what matters: point it at the relevant code, let it index the project, and record conventions it should carry across tasks. "Full context" rarely means feeding it every file—it means the right files, plus the rules of your project.
The mechanics come in a few flavors:
- Manual pasting — best for tiny, one-off questions.
- Project indexing — best for letting an agent search a large repo on demand.
- Persistent memory plus context handling, like Verdent's — best for large codebases you work in repeatedly.
Verdent is designed to work across a project rather than a single open file. Its plan-first step reads surrounding code before making changes, helping edits fit existing patterns instead of fighting them. For a big repository, that grounding can separate a useful change from a plausible-looking wrong one.
Ask yourself: does this agent understand how my project is structured, or just the snippet in front of it? If it keeps reinventing patterns you already use, it's missing context, not intelligence.
Start by documenting your conventions once. An agent that knows your rules asks fewer questions and breaks less.
