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Flows provides three built-in ways to manage conversation context as you move between nodes.

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Strategy Types

  1. APPEND (Default): New node messages are added to the existing context, preserving the full conversation history. The context grows as the conversation progresses.
  2. RESET: The context is cleared and replaced with only the new node’s messages. Useful when previous conversation history is no longer relevant or to reduce context window size.
  3. RESET_WITH_SUMMARY: The context is cleared but includes an AI-generated summary of the previous conversation along with the new node’s messages. Helps reduce context size while preserving key information.
RESET_WITH_SUMMARY is deprecated and will be removed in 2.0. Use Pipecat’s native LLMSummarizeContextFrame instead. To trigger on-demand summarization during a node transition, push an LLMSummarizeContextFrame in a pre-action.

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When to Use Each Strategy

  • Use APPEND when full conversation history is important for context
  • Use RESET when starting a new topic or when previous context might confuse the current task
  • Use RESET_WITH_SUMMARY (deprecated) for long conversations where you need to preserve key points but reduce context size. Prefer Pipecat’s native context summarization for new code.

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Configuration

Context strategies can be defined globally in the FlowManager constructor: 
from pipecat_flows import ContextStrategy, ContextStrategyConfig

# Global strategy configuration
flow_manager = FlowManager(
    task=task,
    llm=llm,
    context_aggregator=context_aggregator,
    context_strategy=ContextStrategyConfig(
        strategy=ContextStrategy.APPEND,
    )
)
Or on a per-node basis: 
# Per-node strategy configuration
node_config = {
    "task_messages": [...],
    "functions": [...],
    "context_strategy": ContextStrategyConfig(
        strategy=ContextStrategy.RESET_WITH_SUMMARY,
        summary_prompt="Provide a concise summary of the customer's order details and preferences."
    )
}