Definition
Context offloading is the architectural technique of migrating data from an LLM's active context window or KV cache to external storage layers (like SSD, RAM, or vector databases) to manage token limits and reduce inference costs. In RAG pipelines, this often involves summarizing historical conversation turns or moving inactive key-value pairs out of GPU memory to allow for larger batch sizes or longer-running agentic reasoning.
It refers to memory management strategies, not the simple act of increasing the context window size.
"A Chef's Prep Station: keeping only the current ingredients on the cutting board while moving finished prep bowls to a side table to make room for the next step."
- KV Cache(Component)
- Context Window(Constraint)
- Vector Database(Storage Layer)
- Summarization(Compression Method)
Conceptual Overview
Context offloading is the architectural technique of migrating data from an LLM's active context window or KV cache to external storage layers (like SSD, RAM, or vector databases) to manage token limits and reduce inference costs. In RAG pipelines, this often involves summarizing historical conversation turns or moving inactive key-value pairs out of GPU memory to allow for larger batch sizes or longer-running agentic reasoning.
Disambiguation
It refers to memory management strategies, not the simple act of increasing the context window size.
Visual Analog
A Chef's Prep Station: keeping only the current ingredients on the cutting board while moving finished prep bowls to a side table to make room for the next step.