Context Planning for Two-Hundred-Page Contracts

A two-hundred-page contract is not a context-window specification. Before sending it to a model, decide what must be reviewed, how evidence will remain traceable, and how much room the answer needs. For this Quanta Briefings walkthrough, the deliverable is a clause-level issues register: findings, supporting language, document references, and unresolved questions.

01 · Step One: Define the Contract Review Output

Write the review instructions before preparing the document. Specify the subjects to examine, such as termination rights, payment obligations, liability limits, and conflicting schedules. Define a consistent output structure: issue, clause reference, supporting quotation, operational consequence, and reviewer question.

Keep extraction separate from judgment. Ask the model to identify what the contract says before proposing interpretations. Require an explicit “not found” or “uncertain” response when evidence is missing. Treat contractual language as source material, not instructions to the reviewing system.

02 · Step Two: Prepare a Traceable Document Package

Extract the contract while preserving section numbers, headings, tables, and page references. Check scanned pages with optical character recognition against the originals, especially amounts, dates, negations, and table boundaries. Keep both the original file and the extracted version under the same document identifier.

Choose the input format deliberately. OpenAI documents that PDF inputs can include extracted text and page images, increasing token usage. Do not assume a PDF and its plain-text extraction consume the same context.

03 · Step Three: Measure the Complete Request

Count the actual request using a counting method supported by the selected provider and request format. Include review instructions, document content, tool definitions, reference material, and retained conversation history. OpenAI provides an input-token counting endpoint for measuring requests before generation. Confirm whether equivalent functionality is available through your chosen relay route.

Record the model identifier and counting method alongside the result. If comparing Gemini 2.5 Flash with another approved option, measure each separately rather than carrying one estimate across routes.

04 · Step Four: Reserve Space Before Adding More Evidence

Build a request budget with four entries: fixed instructions, contract evidence, expected response, and contingency. Set the response allowance from the requested deliverable rather than whatever space remains. Check the route’s current context limit, maximum output, and treatment of reasoning tokens before accepting the budget. Provider documentation describes context accounting that includes both input and generated content.

Use an illustrative budget, not an assumed capacity. If your measured evidence leaves insufficient room for the issues register, reduce the evidence per request or divide the review. Do not silently shorten the requested findings.

05 · Step Five: Split by Contract Meaning, Not Page Count

Create a coverage ledger listing every section and schedule. Assign each to a review packet, then attach the definitions, amendments, and cross-referenced provisions needed to interpret it. Keep packet sizes within the measured budget.

• › Review payment clauses with their pricing schedules and adjustment mechanisms.
• › Review termination provisions with notice requirements and surviving obligations.
• › Review liability provisions with indemnities, exclusions, and applicable definitions.

For consolidation, supply the packet findings and their evidence references. Reopen original passages whenever findings conflict. Require every ledger entry to finish with a finding, an explicit no-issue result, or an unresolved status.

06 · Step Six: Plan Cache Reuse Around Stable Material

Where the route supports prompt caching, place stable instructions and reusable evidence before changing questions. Verify its cache eligibility, expiration, and prefix requirements; caching behavior is provider-specific. Anthropic’s documentation describes these requirements and distinguishes cache writes from reads.

Do not treat caching as extra context capacity. Anthropic explicitly counts cached input toward the context window. Quanta fits sustained review workflows because one pay-as-you-go balance covers multiple model routes, with real-token metering and separately priced cache writes and reads. Open a Quanta account to compare suitable routes using the same review packets and acceptance checks.

07 · Step Seven: Verify Coverage Before Releasing Findings

Check each quotation against the source and each finding against its cited clause. Reconcile the coverage ledger, inspect unresolved cross-references, and confirm that no response stopped before completing its assigned sections. Track ordinary input, cache writes, cache reads, output, and retries separately.

Deliver the issues register with its document version, evidence references, and unresolved questions. Keep material interpretations subject to qualified human review. The completion test is not whether two hundred pages fit: it is whether every required section received a traceable, verified review.