To create a knowledge base in SharePoint, go to New on a site, choose Knowledge base, and either start blank or import existing content. What you get is a set of connected pages written in markdown, stored in a special document library, that your team can read like any SharePoint page and that Copilot and agents can work from.
Microsoft announced knowledge bases on 14 October 2026 and they’re rolling out to Frontier preview tenants, currently only for users enabled for usage-based billing. I’ve had access for a while before the announcement, and everything below comes from building an HR knowledge base for my first video in the series. Because it’s a preview, expect menus, options and behaviour to change before general availability.
What is a SharePoint knowledge base?
A knowledge base keeps a team’s guidance, decisions and procedures in connected pages instead of loose files. It uses SharePoint storage and governance, and you can add one to any SharePoint site, including the sites behind Teams channels and Microsoft 365 Groups.
The difference from a normal library is the format. Every page is a markdown file, so the same page works for someone browsing for an answer and for an agent pulling context.
If you’re after better Copilot answers from the documents you already have, start with turning a document library into a Copilot knowledge base with metadata.
How do you create a knowledge base in SharePoint?
From the site, choose New, then Knowledge base. There are four starting points: a blank knowledge base, importing markdown files, importing a Confluence space, or migrating a classic SharePoint wiki. Remember those classic wikis? There are still a few floating around, and they can come across too.
For a blank knowledge base you give it a name and choose whether it shows in the site navigation. I called mine HR Knowledge Base. It takes a few seconds to whizz up, creating a few things in the background in site contents, then you land on a Getting started page with guidance on building it out, plus a homepage with placeholder text.
Pages can be added from New in the ribbon or straight from the left-hand navigation, where you can create a subpage under any page. You’ve got the WYSIWYG editor, so bold, formatting, images, video, all there. The page menu lets you rename the page, open its version history, and switch to the source editor to see the raw markdown. Both editors work on the same page.
If you used the old wikis, you’ll know this one. Type square brackets and you can link to an existing page or create a new one and link to it in the same step, so pages connect through their content as well as the navigation tree.
There’s also a Copilot route, where you describe the knowledge base you want and Copilot in SharePoint builds it from your sources. That one uses Copilot credits, and it’s the subject of a later video.
What’s underneath: a library of markdown files
Switch to library view and the knowledge base shows what it is: a special type of document library holding folders and .md files. Open one of the files and there it is. The same page you were just editing, in markdown.
I’ve been suggesting for a while that it was worth getting comfortable with markdown. This is a huge reason. Agents work well with it, Copilot included, and SharePoint now keeps team knowledge in that format natively. Anything else that writes markdown, like notes in a GitHub repository or a second brain style system, now has a path into SharePoint.
How to import a folder of markdown files
Go to New, then Import, then Folder, and pick the folder. Each folder becomes a parent page with its markdown files as pages underneath.
Importing a single folder, like processes, creates one section. Importing the parent folder keeps the whole tree: my HR knowledge base came across as 84 pages in one go, with its concepts, entities, processes, comparisons, decisions and source summaries folders intact. The files link to each other with relative links, so keep them in their original relative folders.
Before you try your own:
- Each import is a one-time copy and doesn’t stay in sync with the source folder.
- Images referenced by your markdown aren’t copied. Add them afterwards or link to somewhere readers can reach.
- Renaming another file type to .md doesn’t convert it.
- Importing doesn’t need a Copilot licence or Copilot credits.
Page properties live in the frontmatter
Every page has page properties. In edit mode, Add property offers Sources, Tags and Description. Tags added on the page are written into the YAML frontmatter at the top of the .md file: tagging the leave comparison page “AU leave” and “NZ leave” put both tags straight into the file, visible in library view.
It works the other way too. My imported files already carried frontmatter, and the pages showed it as page properties as soon as the import finished.
Built for AI agents, but also built for humans. Think about the information architecture you can carry here: whatever you tag on the page, an agent can read from the file. Page properties are stored as YAML frontmatter (getting started guide).
Design the structure before you import anything
The import is quick enough that it’s tempting to point it at whatever folder you’ve got and see what happens. I wouldn’t. Import copies whatever’s in the folder, drafts and duplicates included, and Copilot answers from what’s there. Importing pages doesn’t make them current either. I haven’t yet tested how Copilot weighs two pages that disagree, so for now I’d assume an out-of-date page can turn up in an answer.
So before the first import, I’d settle the structure. The left-hand tree is the first thing people see, and when you import, it comes straight from your folders. Plan it around how the team actually looks for things, the way you’d plan an information architecture before AI, not around who happened to write the documents.
Then agree which properties every page carries before anyone starts adding pages. Tags, a description and sources are what the editor offers, and I’d add an owner and a review date, so every page has someone responsible for it and at review time you just filter by owner. Retrofitting metadata across a few hundred pages is slow work, and it’s the same lesson as folders versus metadata in a document library, just moved into the page itself.
The one I’d raise with security and compliance first is access. Knowledge base pages don’t inherit permissions from the files their content came from, and sensitivity labels on source files don’t carry over. If you add content from a file only three people can open, everyone with access to the knowledge base can now read it. Sharing a single page only shares that page and its subpages, so giving someone the whole knowledge base means adding them as a site visitor. Decide who should see a knowledge base before anything goes into it.
What does a SharePoint knowledge base cost?
- Knowledge bases are currently available only to users enabled for usage-based billing, and admins manage access and spending in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
- Creating a knowledge base by hand, editing pages and importing markdown, Confluence or a classic wiki don’t use Copilot credits.
- Asking Copilot to create or maintain a knowledge base, such as adding sources, updating pages or checking its health, uses Copilot credits. Copilot asks you to approve the credit use first, and typing
/costafterwards shows what the task used. - Asking Copilot questions that it answers from the knowledge base pages is included with a Microsoft 365 Copilot licence.
Billing terms may change before general availability. The details are in Get started with SharePoint Knowledge Base.
Frequently asked questions
Why can’t I see the option to create a knowledge base? It’s in Frontier preview and availability varies by organisation. You also need permission to create content on the site and to be enabled for usage-based billing. If the option isn’t there, check with your SharePoint administrator.
Does an imported knowledge base stay in sync with the original markdown files? No. Each import is a one-time copy, and editing the original folder afterwards changes nothing in SharePoint. If you remove or change a source later, ask Copilot to check the knowledge base for updates and review the pages that used it.
Can I edit the markdown directly? Yes. Use the source editor from the page menu, or open the .md file from library view. Renaming or moving a page by hand can break links to it from other pages, and a Copilot health check will find broken links for you.
Will Copilot updates overwrite my manual edits? During preview they can. Microsoft’s known issues list says updates from Copilot in SharePoint can reverse edits people have made or recreate pages that were deleted, so review the affected pages after each Copilot update.
How many files can Copilot add to a knowledge base at once? Microsoft recommends no more than 10 files per request when adding sources with Copilot, because larger batches can be slow or not finish. The recommendation applies to each request, and Copilot can only run one update on a knowledge base at a time.
