Same Context, Different Agents: A Behavioral Study of Semantic Layers, Orchestration and Compaction in Data Agents
Answering questions over heterogeneous data means combining evidence from files, databases, documents and the web. Data agents automate this, but their success depends on context. Three context-engineering techniques (CETs) help by shaping it: semantic layers describe the data, orchestration splits work among agents, and compaction condenses interaction history. Existing studies validate each CET alone, leaving open how agent behavior shapes its effect. We present a comprehensive analysis of the three CETs, alone and combined, with seven large language models (LLMs) on 1,514 long-horizon tasks from five benchmarks, covering behavior, accuracy and cost. We find that data agents without CET...
| Authors | Zhivar Sourati, Marianne Menglin Liu, Zheng Wang et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 14 October 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 14 October 2026 |
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