Context Items
Context items are the individual pieces of information that make up a model's context.
| Item | Role |
|---|---|
| System Message | Sets the rules the model should follow. |
| Developer Message | Tells the agent how to behave. |
| User Message | Contains the user's request or information supplied to the model. |
| Tool Call | A model-generated request to execute a function with specified arguments. |
| Tool Call Output | The result of executing a function, returned to the model. |
| Reasoning | Represents a reasoning model's intermediate reasoning state, which may be exposed as a summary or preserved in encrypted form. |
| Model Message | A message generated by the model, such as an answer or clarification. |
Each provider has its own representation of these context items, and some unify the system message and the developer message into a single item.
Read more about a model's context.