diff --git a/octodns/context.py b/octodns/context.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eec8ca1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/octodns/context.py
@@ -0,0 +1,20 @@
+#
+#
+#
+
+
+class ContextDict(dict):
+    '''
+    This is used by things that call `Record.new` to pass in a `data`
+    dictionary that includes some context as to where the data came from to be
+    printed along with exceptions or validations of the record.
+
+    It breaks lots of stuff if we stored the context in an extra key and the
+    python `dict` object doesn't allow you to set attributes on the object so
+    this is a very thin wrapper around `dict` that allows us to have a context
+    attribute.
+    '''
+
+    def __init__(self, *args, context=None, **kwargs):
+        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+        self.context = context
diff --git a/octodns/yaml.py b/octodns/yaml.py
index 6cdeaf1..09433d9 100644
--- a/octodns/yaml.py
+++ b/octodns/yaml.py
@@ -7,17 +7,9 @@ from yaml import SafeDumper, SafeLoader, dump, load
 from yaml.constructor import ConstructorError
 from yaml.representer import SafeRepresenter
 
-_natsort_key = natsort_keygen()
-
+from .context import ContextDict
 
-# TODO: where should this live
-class ContextDict(dict):
-    # can't assign attributes to plain dict objects and it breaks lots of stuff
-    # if we put the context into the dict data itself
-
-    def __init__(self, *args, context=None, **kwargs):
-        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
-        self.context = context
+_natsort_key = natsort_keygen()
 
 
 class ContextLoader(SafeLoader):