MCP Server for Microsoft Learn Delivers Real-Time Access to Microsoft Documentation

Technologists love new technology, even if new technology often disappoints or doesn’t live up to over-hyped expectations. This fact of IT life has been true for as long as I can remember and has applied to mainframes, minicomputers, PCs, and the cloud.

I was reminded about the truth that technology can disappoint when I saw the reactions of many to the news that Microsoft has a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server to allow real-time access by agents to Microsoft documentation (essentially, the contents of the learn.microsoft.com website). The server is currently in public preview.

Most of the reactions I saw were of the “gee-whiz, what a great thing” variety, probably based on the expectation of what an agent might do with Microsoft documentation rather than any experience of the MCP server in action. It will take time before people figure out how to take advantage of Microsoft documentation (question to self, what is the meaning of “official” documentation?).

Using the MCP Server with GitHub Copilot

In any case, it’s easy to add the MCP server to Visual Studio Code, which is what I use to write PowerShell code. The documentation includes a one-click installation which wasn’t quite a one-click activity but worked in the end. When the MCP server for Microsoft Learn is installed, GitHub Copilot can use it as a tool to help answer user prompts. As it happens, I’ve been reviewing some text for the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell eBook and asked GitHub Copilot for some help. Figure 1 shows the response.

At first glance, the response looks perfectly reasonable. The only trouble is that it’s wrong. The cmdlets cited in the answer don’t exist and haven’t existed since the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK divided its single module into production and beta modules in V2.0 of the SDK (released in July 2023).

Issues Linger in Documentation

The effectiveness of AI-based tools depend on the accuracy of their input sources. Generative AI can’t create new knowledge. It can only generate responses based on source content, and those responses will be flawed when imperfections exist in the source. The problem here is that the “official documentation” for how to customize item insights privacy was written sometime in 2021 and hasn’t changed much since. According to the page header, Microsoft last updated it on 31 January 2025. However, the content still details the use of incorrect cmdlets.

I know that the information was valid in 2021 because I covered the topic for Practical365.com in April 2021. The problem is that the cmdlets still use a beta endpoint, so the correct cmdlets are Update-MgBetaOrganizationSettingItemInsight and Get-MgBetaOrganizationSettingItemInsight. I don’t blame the writer responsible for the page for missing the esoteric change made to split the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK into two modules. The example code is simple. What could go wrong with it?

Official Microsoft Documentation isn’t Perfect

All of this illustrates the fallacy of treating “official” documentation as an infallible source of truth. The Microsoft Learn documentation is a source of valuable information that often delivers great answers. But its content suffers from the same problem as blogs and other online sources of information in that technology moves so fast these days that documentation is in a state of constant flux. Keeping hundreds of thousands of pages current is a never-ending task, even if the technology was relatively stable.

Microsoft 365 is a very dynamic and complex technical environment where features can be affected by licensing, configuration, user settings, and add-ins. Include some recent layoffs of Microsoft writers and a bunch of automatically generated documentation and suddenly, the foundation for the “official” documentation doesn’t look quite as solid. There’s still lots of very useful information in Microsoft Learn even if it’s not quite as perfect as some might think.

Seeking Help for Better Code

It makes perfect sense to use new tools to extract more advantage from existing resources. Perhaps the MCP Server for Microsoft Learn will help to address the knowledge deficit of people struggling to understand how to write better code using Microsoft technologies like the Graph APIs through its integration with GitHub Copilot. We’ll only know if this is the case over time when developers have a chance to understand if the presence of the server improves their code.

I won’t complain if the MCP Server reduces or eliminates the tendency for GitHub Copilot to hallucinate by proposing cmdlets or parameters that don’t exist. Much as I admire GitHub Copilot exhibiting its artistic side when creating previously unknown cmdlets, it’s something that wears over time.

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