(noun)/laɪv ˈkɑn.tɛkst/
Context that is current, findable, and queryable. Fresh enough to trust, reachable when you need it, and structured so people and machines can ask it questions. The opposite of dark and gray.
Context that answers back.
Similar single source of truth, living documentation, a knowledge base that actually works
Not just captured. Current.
Capturing context is the easy half. The hard half is keeping it alive: current so you can trust it, findable so you can reach it, and queryable so you can actually ask it something. Miss any one and it might as well be dark.
Dark context you never reach. Gray context you reach but cannot trust. Green context you reach, trust, and can ask. That is the whole goal.
What makes context usable
Green context is not one thing. It is three, and it needs all three at once.
Current
Fresh enough to trust. Tended on a cadence, not left to drift toward gray.
Findable
There when you reach for it. Not lost in a folder, not fenced behind one login. Organized so it surfaces.
Queryable
Shaped so you, and your AI, can ask a question and get a straight answer, not a pile of documents to go read.
The test is simple: ask
The same question lands very differently depending on the state your context is in. This is why "queryable" is the one that matters most now: it is what an AI does with your context all day.
ask > What is our refund policy?
Green context answers in the present tense.
Staying current is work
Context does not stay current on its own. It stays that way because someone keeps it fresh, keeps it findable, and keeps it answerable. That tending is the work.
Dark Context is built on MethodKit: get a group onto the same page about how things really work, then keep re-drawing that picture as the work changes. That is what keeps context current, and what gives an AI something true to query. Stop tending it and it slides: first gray, then dark.
The rest of the picture
Green context is the state you want. Its failures have names too: dark context you never captured or could never reach, and gray context that quietly went out of date. The full idea lives on the main site.
Read the Dark Context manifesto →darkcontext:~$can your context answer back?
Leave an email and we will be in touch. Tick the workshop box if you want help getting your context current, findable, and queryable, or just leave the address to follow the idea with us. No pitch.