Week 03 — Context engineering, workflows, sliding window¶

At a glance

Phase 1: Foundations · Starts: Mon 12 Oct 2026 · Planned: 16h 45m

Build: Capstone: routing + prompt-chaining workflow with history compaction

By day¶

System Design · 45 min · DDIA 2e ch1-2: reliability, scalability, maintainability — describe load parameters + percentiles for the capstone → Scalability fundamentals & latency numbers · resource w03-sd-1
DSA · 25 min · Best Time to Buy and Sell Stock + Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters → Sliding window · resource w03-dsa-1
Python · 20 min · Rep: asyncio.TaskGroup to fan out 5 tool calls; exception propagation via ExceptionGroup/except* → asyncio in depth: TaskGroups, cancellation, backpressure w03-py-1
Communication · 30 min · Grammar: Present perfect vs past simple, and time expressions → Week 03 drills · day 1 w03-comm-1

Agentic AI · 60 min · Read Anthropic 'Effective context engineering for AI agents'; write a context budget for the triage agent (system, tools, retrieved docs, history, scratchpad) → Context engineering · resource w03-ai-1
DSA · 30 min · Longest Repeating Character Replacement (window validity = len - maxfreq <= k) → Sliding window · resource w03-dsa-2
Communication · 30 min · Vocabulary: Tech-leadership verbs: champion, unblock, de-risk → Week 03 drills · day 2 w03-comm-2

DSA · 25 min · Permutation in String (fixed window counts) → Sliding window · resource w03-dsa-3
Architecture · 45 min · Design patterns that still matter: strategy, adapter, decorator, chain of responsibility — map each to LLM provider / middleware code → Design patterns that still matter (GoF, modern) · resource w03-arch-1
Python · 20 min · Rep: asyncio cancellation + asyncio.timeout(); make a tool call cancel-safe (cleanup in finally) → asyncio in depth: TaskGroups, cancellation, backpressure w03-py-2
Communication · 30 min · Speaking drill: Intonation for emphasis and questions → Week 03 drills · day 3 w03-comm-3

Agentic AI · 60 min · Reasoning models: when extended thinking helps vs hurts; compare a reasoning and a fast model on 20 triage cases (accuracy, latency, cost) → LLM fundamentals: tokens, transformers, sampling, reasoning models w03-ai-2
Java/Spring AI · 30 min · Spring Boot 4 highlights: API versioning, built-in retry/concurrency limits, JSpecify null-safety — apply @Retryable to an LLM call → Spring Boot 4 & Spring Framework 7 w03-java-1
Communication · 30 min · Idioms & phrasal verbs: Risk and uncertainty: in the pipeline, up in the air → Week 03 drills · day 4 w03-comm-4

System Design · 45 min · Proxies & gateways: reverse proxy, API gateway, service mesh — where each sits in front of an LLM service → Load balancing & proxies w03-sd-2
DSA · 25 min · Minimum Window Substring (need/have counters) → Sliding window · resource w03-dsa-4
Python · 20 min · Rep: ParamSpec + Concatenate to type a @retry decorator that preserves signatures → Advanced typing: generics, Protocols, ParamSpec, TypedDict · resource w03-py-3
Communication · 30 min · Writing: Meeting notes and action items → Week 03 drills · day 5 w03-comm-5

Agentic AI · 120 min · Capstone build: routing workflow — classify incident type then dispatch to specialised prompt chains; add history compaction when context > budget → Agent & workflow patterns (Building Effective Agents) · resource w03-ai-3
DSA · 30 min · Sliding Window Maximum (monotonic deque) → Sliding window · resource w03-dsa-5
Java/Spring AI · 30 min · Spring AI advisors: SimpleLoggerAdvisor + MessageChatMemoryAdvisor; write a custom advisor that redacts emails from prompts → Spring AI 2.0 fundamentals: ChatClient, advisors, structured output · resource w03-java-2
Communication · 30 min · Record & shadow: Intonation for emphasis and questions → Week 03 drills · day 6 w03-comm-6

System Design · 45 min · Written design: public API for the capstone — REST + SSE streaming, idempotent ticket creation, cursor pagination, versioning, error model → API design: REST, gRPC, GraphQL, idempotency, pagination w03-sd-3
Architecture · 30 min · Write ADR 003 for capstone: LLM provider abstraction via Protocol-based adapter (vs LiteLLM-only) → Design patterns that still matter (GoF, modern) · resource w03-arch-2
Staff+ · 30 min · Read a good design doc structure (context, goals/non-goals, alternatives, risks) and draft a template for docs/log/design-doc-template.md → Design docs & RFCs that get approved · resource w03-staff-1
Communication · 30 min · Soft skills + weekly review: Receiving feedback without defensiveness → Week 03 drills · day 7 w03-comm-7
Review · 60 min · Retro week 1-3 + flashcards: context engineering vocabulary (compaction, JIT retrieval, tool budget); explain-it-back sliding window invariant → Context engineering w03-rev-1