Application contexts are a means of organizing and managing the SST infrastructure components on a per user-application basis. They have an inherent notion of the local object space and its local handlers as well as lists of the known remote spaces and handlers. Contexts are dynamically extensible allowing existing components (other than their local space) to be added and removed after the context has been started.

A context's components (such as handlers and local space) and their elements (such as the space's export set) are not accessible by other contexts. As such, contexts isolate user-applications from each other and limit interference.

If you are using the object invocation model, contexts can provide a single point of control for all infrastructure related to an application. They allow all of their local components to be started and stopped as a whole.