Introduction
Persistent context can be organized into layers.
Global Instructions
Global instructions apply across projects. They can store broad preferences, communication style, recurring design choices, and user-wide operating rules.
Local Project Instructions
Local instructions apply only to a particular workspace. They can contain project architecture, technical constraints, local naming conventions, project-specific decisions, and requirements that should not affect other work.
Memory
Memory files store useful preferences or high-level lessons from previous work. They allow the agent to recall information without placing every historical detail in the current conversation.
Skills
Skills contain repeatable workflows. They should be loaded when a matching task occurs rather than being inserted in full for every session.
Inline Prompt
The current user request contains the immediate task, temporary context, and task-specific definition of done.
The order can be understood as a context stack. Broad global rules are applied first. Local project rules refine them. Relevant memory adds prior knowledge. A skill contributes a validated procedure. The inline request defines the current objective.
The design goal is to put each type of information in the correct layer. Information that must influence every session belongs in global instructions. Information that only matters to one project belongs locally. A repeatable process belongs in a skill. Temporary requirements belong in the current prompt.