Microsoft Docs

Microsoft Docs

Tools

When to Use

• Understanding concepts — "How does Cosmos DB partitioning work?"
• Learning a service — "Azure Functions overview", "Container Apps architecture"
• Finding tutorials — "quickstart", "getting started", "step-by-step"
• Configuration options — "App Service configuration settings"
• Limits & quotas — "Azure OpenAI rate limits", "Service Bus quotas"
• Best practices — "Azure security best practices"

Query Effectiveness

Good queries are specific:

# ❌ Too broad
"Azure Functions"

# ✅ Specific
"Azure Functions Python v2 programming model"
"Cosmos DB partition key design best practices"
"Container Apps scaling rules KEDA"

Include context:

• Version when relevant (.NET 8, EF Core 8)
• Task intent (quickstart, tutorial, overview, limits)
• Platform for multi-platform docs (Linux, Windows)

When to Fetch Full Page

Fetch after search when:

• Tutorials — need complete step-by-step instructions
• Configuration guides — need all options listed
• Deep dives — user wants comprehensive coverage
• Search excerpt is cut off — full context needed

Why Use This

• Accuracy — live docs, not training data that may be outdated
• Completeness — tutorials have all steps, not fragments
• Authority — official Microsoft documentation

CLI Alternative (Nix only)

If the Learn MCP server is not available, use a Nix-provided mslearn CLI only (do not use npm):

# Example (once packaged in nixpkgs)
nix run nixpkgs#mslearn -- search "azure functions timeout"

If mslearn is not yet available in nixpkgs, do not fall back to npm; report the limitation and track packaging work in ./Todo.

The fetch command also supports --section <heading> to extract a single section and --max-chars <number> to truncate output.