In most of the operations of the base context interface, the caller supplies a context and a composite name argument. The supplied composite name is always interpreted relative to the supplied context.
The operation might eventually be effected on a different context called the operation's target context. Each operation has an initial resolution phase that conveys the operation to its target context, following which the operation is applied. The effect (but not necessarily the implementation) is that of:
Doing a lookup on that portion of the name that represents the target context
Invoking the operation on the target context
The contexts involved only in the resolution phase are called intermediate contexts. Normal resolution of names in context operations always follows XFN links, which are defined in XFN Links.