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Check for an existing knowledge article

Applies to: Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Note

  • The tools and examples in this documentation illustrate current capabilities. Tool names, descriptions, parameters, response formats, and available functionality can change over time.
  • When you build agents, integrations, or orchestration logic, don't hard-code dependencies on specific tool names, parameter structures, tool metadata, or response schemas. Instead, design your solution to discover and use available tools at runtime.
  • As the platform evolves, Microsoft might add, remove, rename, or modify tools and tool metadata. Designing against capabilities rather than specific tool identifiers helps maintain compatibility across service updates.

Use this capability when you want the assistant to help with check for an existing knowledge article from chat.

What it does

Runs the Knowledge Management Agent deduplication check for a source record and returns an existing-article match or no-match result.

Try prompts like

  • Do we have a KB for this case?
  • Is there an existing article about this conversation?
  • Check whether this issue is already documented.
  • Find an existing knowledge article for this record.

What you'll see in chat

The assistant shows whether a similar article already exists for the selected source record.

Helpful tips

  • Use this when you want to know whether an article already exists.
  • Don't run it before harvesting; the harvest pipeline already performs its own duplicate check.
  • Start from a specific case or conversation so the check has enough context.

What happens next

  • Open the matched article if one exists.
  • Harvest a draft only when no suitable article exists.
  • Ask for a summary of the source record before drafting.

Does this change data?

This can create or update backend check state, but it doesn't publish or delete knowledge articles.

What you can do from the app-in-chat component

From the component in chat, you can:

  • Review the current result or state.
  • Open the related Dynamics 365 record when the component provides a link.
  • Continue the workflow with the available component actions.

Prerequisites

This tool requires the following:

  • Copilot features to be enabled.

Learn more in Configure knowledge management and Manage Copilot features in Customer Service.

Tool summary

Property Value
User-facing name Check Knowledge Gap
Internal tool name check_knowledge_gap
Purpose Checks whether a similar Knowledge Article already exists for a source case, conversation, or custom entity through the Knowledge Management Agent dedup pipeline

Tool behavior

Checks whether a similar Knowledge Article already exists for a source case, conversation, or custom entity through the Knowledge Management Agent dedup pipeline. Use as a preflight before harvest_knowledge_article when the user explicitly asks whether an article exists.

Annotations

Annotation Value Meaning
readOnlyHint false This tool modifies data.
destructiveHint false Updates data but doesn't delete records.
idempotentHint false Repeated calls with the same input produce the same result.
openWorldHint Not set Uses default (queries Dataverse).

Input concepts

Source record

Input Description Required
sourceId sourceId (GUID, required). The ID of the source case, conversation, or custom entity to check. Yes

Source entity type

Input Description Required
sourceEntityType sourceEntityType (required). The logical name of the source entity (for example, incident, msdyn_ocliveworkitem). Yes

Response and UI behavior

This MCP tool is supported by an MCP app.

Response type

Interactive (widget)

Renders a widget showing whether a matching article exists and providing an option to proceed with harvesting if no duplicate is found.

Routing notes

Use check_knowledge_gap when:

  • The user explicitly asks whether an article exists before creating one.
  • Used as a preflight step before harvest_knowledge_article.

Don't use check_knowledge_gap when:

  • The user wants to create an article immediately—route to harvest_knowledge_article (it checks internally anyway).
  • The user wants to search for articles by keyword—route to search_knowledge_articles.
Tool Relationship
harvest_knowledge_article The primary harvest tool. check_knowledge_gap is an optional preflight
search_knowledge_articles Browses and lists articles by keyword

Data mutation classification

Light write. Triggers the KMA dedup pipeline but doesn't create or modify knowledge articles.

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