Site Explorer

Site Explorer

Navigate your SharePoint environment interactively. Search for sites, browse their lists and document libraries, inspect list schemas and items, preview files, and drill into folder structures — all from the command line.

When to Use

• "What SharePoint sites do I have access to?"
• "Show me the lists on the Marketing site"
• "What's in the Shared Documents library on the HR site?"
• "Browse the Project Alpha site"
• "What columns does the Vendor Tracker list have?"
• Discovering content across SharePoint before working with it

Instructions

Step 1: Identify the User

workiq-ask (
  question: "What is my profile information including display name and email address?"
)

Step 2: Find Sites

Search by name:

workiq-ask (
  question: "Search for SharePoint sites matching '<site name or partial name>'. For each site return the site name and URL."
)

Browse top sites (no specific name):

workiq-ask (
  question: "What SharePoint sites do I have access to? List each site's name and URL."
)

Present discovered sites:

🌐 SHAREPOINT SITES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 #   Site Name                  URL
 1   HR Hiring Portal           contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/HRHiring
 2   Marketing Hub              contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/Marketing
 3   Project Alpha              contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/ProjectAlpha
 4   Engineering Wiki           contoso.sharepoint.com/sites/EngWiki

Which site would you like to explore?

Step 3: Explore a Site — Lists and Libraries

Retrieve all lists and document libraries on the selected site:

workiq-ask (
  question: "What lists and document libraries are on the '<site name>' SharePoint site? For each list include the name, item count, and last modified date. For each document library include the name and file count."
)

Display:

📁 SITE: {Site Name}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📋 LISTS ({count})
 #   List Name                  Items   Last Modified
 1   Job Openings               24      Feb 25, 2026
 2   Candidate Feedback         156     Feb 27, 2026
 3   Interview Schedule         42      Feb 28, 2026

📚 DOCUMENT LIBRARIES ({count})
 #   Library Name               Files
 4   Shared Documents           87
 5   Templates                  12
 6   Meeting Notes              34

🛠️ ACTIONS
  "show list #1"          — view list items
  "show columns in #2"    — inspect list schema
  "browse #4"             — explore document library
  "show subsites"         — list child sites

Step 4: Explore a List — Schema

View column definitions for a list:

workiq-ask (
  question: "What are the columns in the '<list name>' list on the '<site name>' SharePoint site? For each column include the name, data type, whether it is required, and description."
)

Display:

📋 LIST SCHEMA: {List Name}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 Column Name          Type          Required   Description
 Title                Text          ✅         Job title
 Department           Choice        ❌         HR, Eng, Marketing, Sales
 Status               Choice        ✅         Open, Closed, On Hold
 Hiring Manager       Person        ❌         —
 Target Start Date    DateTime      ❌         —
 Salary Range         Text          ❌         —

🛠️ ACTIONS
  "show items"           — view list data
  "show items where Status = Open" — filtered view

Step 5: Explore a List — Items

Retrieve list items:

workiq-ask (
  question: "Show me the items in the '<list name>' list on the '<site name>' SharePoint site. Include all columns for each item."
)

Display items in a table format, using column names as headers. Show the first 20 items; note if more exist.

📋 LIST: {List Name} — {N} items
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 #   Title              Department   Status   Hiring Manager   Target Start
 1   Sr. Engineer        Eng          Open     Firstname1 Lastname1   Mar 15
 2   Product Designer    Design       Open     Firstname2 Lastname2   Apr 1
 3   Data Analyst        Analytics    Closed   Firstname3 Lastname3   —
 ...

🛠️ ACTIONS
  "show item #1 details"         — full item view
  "filter by Status = Open"      — narrow down
  "export to Word"               — save as document

Step 6: Explore a Document Library

Browse a library's contents:

workiq-ask (
  question: "Show me the files and folders in the '<library name>' document library on the '<site name>' SharePoint site. For each item include the name, type (file or folder), size, and last modified date."
)

Display:

📚 DOCUMENT LIBRARY: {Library Name}
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
 #   Name                       Type     Size     Modified
 📁  Contracts                   Folder   —        Feb 20
 📁  Templates                   Folder   —        Feb 15
 📄  Q1 Budget.xlsx              File     245 KB   Feb 27
 📄  Team Roster.docx            File     82 KB    Feb 25
 📄  README.md                   File     4 KB     Feb 10

🛠️ ACTIONS
  "open Contracts"         — browse into folder
  "read README.md"         — preview file contents
  "show details Q1 Budget" — file metadata
  "search for 'invoice'"   — find files by name

Step 7: Browse Into Folders

workiq-ask (
  question: "Show me the contents of the '<folder name>' folder in the '<library name>' document library on the '<site name>' SharePoint site. Include file name, type, size, and last modified date."
)

Step 8: Preview a File

For text file contents:

workiq-ask (
  question: "Show me the contents of the file '<file name>' in the '<library name>' document library on the '<site name>' SharePoint site."
)

For metadata only:

workiq-ask (
  question: "What are the metadata details for the file '<file name>' in the '<library name>' document library on the '<site name>' SharePoint site? Include size, type, created date, modified date, and author."
)

Step 9: Search for Files

workiq-ask (
  question: "Search for files matching '<file name or keyword>' across my SharePoint sites. Include the file name, site, library, size, and last modified date for each result."
)

Step 10: List Subsites

workiq-ask (
  question: "What are the subsites under the '<site name>' SharePoint site? Include each subsite's name and URL."
)

Parameters

Required MCP Tools

Tips

• Start broad: "show me my SharePoint sites" to discover what's available.
• Drill down naturally: "open Marketing site" → "show lists" → "show Job Openings items."
• Say "search for 'budget'" to find files across SharePoint without knowing where they are.
• After exploring, you can create new lists or search for specific files using other M365 productivity skills.

Examples

Example 1: Discover All Accessible Sites

"What SharePoint sites do I have access to?"

Claude queries your accessible sites via ask, then presents them in a numbered table. You can select any site by number or name to continue exploring.

Example 2: Inspect a List Schema and Items

"Show me the columns and items in the Vendor Tracker list on the Procurement site."

1. Claude searches for the Procurement site via ask.
2. Retrieves all lists and locates Vendor Tracker.
3. Fetches the list schema to display column names, types, and required flags.
4. Retrieves items to show the first 20 rows in a table, with a prompt to filter or export.

Example 3: Browse a Document Library and Preview a File

"Open the Shared Documents library on the Project Alpha site and show me what's in the Contracts folder."

1. Claude resolves the site via ask.
2. Lists document libraries on the site.
3. Shows top-level contents of Shared Documents.
4. Drills into the Contracts folder.
5. If you say "read README.md", Claude previews its contents inline via ask.

Error Handling

Site Not Found

Symptom: ask returns no results for a site name search.

Resolution:

• Verify the site name or URL is correct (check spelling, use a partial name for broader search).
• Try asking for all accessible sites to browse and identify the correct name.
• Confirm you have at least read access to the site in SharePoint.

Permission Denied

Symptom: ask indicates a permission or access error when querying a site, list, library, or file.

Resolution:

• You do not have access to that resource. Contact the site owner to request permission.
• If you own the site, verify that the connected account has the correct SharePoint role assigned.

List or Library Not Found

Symptom: ask returns lists but the expected list is missing, or no libraries are reported.

Resolution:

• The list may be hidden (set to not appear in navigation). Ask the site admin to confirm it exists.
• Confirm you are on the correct site — run the site search again to verify.

File Too Large to Preview

Symptom: ask cannot return the contents of a large file.

Resolution:

• Ask for file metadata only (size, type, modified date) instead of full content.
• Download the file directly from SharePoint for full access.

Inconsistent Search Results

Symptom: ask returns fewer site results than expected.

Resolution:

• SharePoint search indexes may lag by a few minutes after site creation or rename.
• Wait briefly and retry, or ask with the exact site URL if known.