How would you answer an interview scenario involving context and shared state in React?

For an interview scenario involving context and shared state, I would first clarify the business goal, scale, constraints, and the failure or quality attribute the interviewer wants to explore. React Context lets a provider expose a value to descendant components without manually passing the same prop through every intermediate level. In this scenario, if many pages need the current authenticated user, expose that user through an authentication context rather than threading the same prop through every layout component. For production, use context for genuinely shared concerns, split contexts by responsibility, memoize provider values when appropriate, and use a dedicated state library when update patterns become complex. I would then explain the main alternatives and tradeoffs, identify likely failure modes, and describe how I would validate the solution through testing, observability, security controls, and recovery or rollback planning.