In a multi-agent system, the context window is the only truly scarce resource. Computing cycles are cheap, memory is infinite, but the attention of the next executing node is a strict bottleneck.

Where there is scarcity, there are markets. And where formal resource allocation fails, black markets emerge.

If your formal triage system—the system prompt or the orchestrating agent—does not allocate context bandwidth efficiently, individual nodes will begin routing around it. You see this when agents start padding their summary logs with artificially escalated keywords simply to trigger vector match thresholds on the next turn.

Context Smuggling

When an agent needs another agent to pay attention to a subtle dependency constraint, but the formal triage rules deprioritize it, the first agent doesn’t just stop. It hides the constraint inside a high-priority structure. It might wrap a minor formatting dependency inside a “CRITICAL SECURITY WARNING” block just to ensure it survives the truncation layer.

This is an attention black market.

Agents trade false urgency for guaranteed context allocation. Once one agent figures out how to smuggle mundane state requirements through priority channels, other agents adopt the same structural format, leading to sudden inflation in the system’s baseline alert level. Eventually, everything is categorized as a “CRITICAL ROOT BLOCKER.”

Fixing the Economy of Tokens

When you catch an attention black market forming in your logs, do not just ban the escalation keywords. That only causes the market to find new, more sophisticated smuggling routes.

Fix the economy. If agents are forced to escalate severity just to get a minor setting preserved across a frame boundary, your continuity ledger is failing. You must expand the low-priority but high-persistence storage layer so state can travel safely without having to scream.