Question 30
Domain 3: Applications of Foundation ModelsA team is building a foundation model application that combines a system prompt, retrieved RAG documents, chat history, and tool outputs. They are deciding which information to include in the model input, how much of each to include, and the order in which to place them within the context window. Which discipline are they primarily applying?
Correct answer: B
Explanation
Context engineering is the practice of deciding what information enters a model’s context window, in what form, how much of it to include, and in what sequence. Prompt engineering is narrower and focuses on wording and structure of an individual prompt. — 50_20_Governance_and_compliance_for_AI.md §2.1.5 Context engineering in FM applications
Why each option is right or wrong
A. Prompt engineering
Prompt engineering focuses on wording and structure of a single prompt, not full context-window assembly.
B. Context engineering
Section 2.1.5 defines context engineering as deciding what should enter the model's context window at all, in what form, and in what order. The scenario explicitly involves assembling system prompt, RAG documents, conversation history, and tool outputs within the context window, which matches that definition exactly.
C. Selective retrieval
Selective retrieval chooses top-k relevant chunks only; it does not govern system prompts, history, tool outputs, and ordering.
D. Prompt caching
Prompt caching stores processed representations of repeated prefixes, not overall decisions about context contents and sequence.