Access @context outside of article template?

I'm trying to get the first article to display on the index by calling the articles and just limiting the scope of the list to the first item. The problem is I can't seem to call any of the custom data using the @context variable.

The wiki seems to say that I should be able to access the data when it's "not in the article templates" but I can't seem to get it working. Is this a bug or am I just daft?

Start by reproducing the reported attempt to list the first article on the index and access custom data through @context outside an article template. Trace how @context is made available in those two rendering contexts; done when the expected data is accessible there or the limitation is clearly documented.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.