Tutorial: Upload knowledge documents in Azure SRE Agent

In this tutorial, you upload knowledge documents to your Azure SRE Agent so it can reference them during future investigations. You learn how to save investigation results directly into Knowledge settings through chat and how to upload existing files through the portal UI.

In this tutorial, you learn how to:

Estimated time: 10 minutes

Prerequisites

• An Azure SRE Agent in Running state
• Write permissions on the agent
• Agent run mode set to Review or Autonomous

Step 1: Start from an investigation

The best knowledge documents come from real investigations. Instead of creating content from scratch, capture what your agent already learned.

1. Go to sre.azure.com and select your agent.
2. In the left sidebar under Chats, find a previous investigation thread - any conversation where your agent diagnosed or resolved an issue - and select it.

If you don't have an investigation thread yet, start a new chat and ask your agent to investigate something:

Investigate high memory usage on our container apps

Wait for the investigation to complete, and then continue with Step 2.

Step 2: Ask your agent to create a runbook

In the same investigation thread, ask your agent to turn its findings into a runbook and save it to Knowledge settings. Be specific about the filename.

Create a runbook from the investigation we just did. Include the root cause
analysis, the diagnostic steps, mitigations, and escalation triggers.
Save it to Knowledge settings as high-memory-runbook.md

Your agent:

1. Synthesizes the investigation context into a structured runbook.
2. Generates sections like Root Cause Analysis, Diagnostic Steps, Mitigations, and Escalation Triggers.
3. Saves the document to Knowledge settings and confirms the upload.

The agent confirms the document was saved and provides a download link. Your runbook is now stored in Knowledge settings and is indexed for search.

Checkpoint

• Agent generated a structured runbook from the investigation.
• Agent confirmed the document was saved.

Step 3: Verify in Knowledge settings

1. In the left sidebar, select Builder to expand the section.
2. Select Knowledge settings.

The Knowledge settings page displays your documents in a table with columns for File Name, Status, Type, and Last modified. The Status column shows ✓ Indexed when the document is indexed and ready for search.

If the status shows Pending, select Refresh. Indexing typically completes within a few seconds.

Checkpoint

• Navigated to Builder → Knowledge settings
• Document appears with ✓ Indexed status

Step 4: Upload files through the portal

You can upload individual files or entire folders directly. This method is useful for existing runbooks, documentation, or reference materials your team already has.

Upload individual files

1. On the Knowledge sources page, select Add file.
2. Drag a file into the drop zone, or select browse for files to choose one.
3. Select Add file to upload.

Upload a folder

You can also drag an entire folder - including nested subfolders - onto the drop zone.

1. On the Knowledge sources page, select Add file.
2. Drag a folder from your file manager directly onto the drop zone.
3. The portal extracts all supported files from the folder and its subfolders, then lists them in the dialog.
4. Review the file list - remove any files you don't want by selecting the delete icon next to each file.
5. Select Add file to upload all listed files.

The portal automatically filters out files with unsupported extensions. For the complete list of supported extensions and size limits, see the Upload Knowledge Documents capability page.

Maximum file size is 16 MB per file, with up to 100 MB per upload.

Checkpoint

• Selected Add file and saw the upload dialog.
• Uploaded a file or dragged a folder successfully.
• Files appear in Knowledge sources with ✓ Indexed status.

Step 5: Test retrieval in a new conversation

Start a new chat thread and ask a question that your uploaded documents should answer:

What are the steps for troubleshooting high memory usage on container apps?

Your agent searches Knowledge settings, finds your uploaded runbook, and references it in the response. This process confirms the knowledge is indexed and retrievable.

Checkpoint

• Started a new chat thread
• Asked a question related to the uploaded content
• Agent referenced the uploaded document in its response

Delete a knowledge document

1. Go to Builder → Knowledge settings.
2. In the documents list, select one or more documents by using the checkboxes.
3. Select Delete in the toolbar.
4. A confirmation dialog lists the documents to remove. Select Delete to confirm.

When you delete documents, you remove them from the agent's Knowledge settings and they no longer appear in search results.

What you learned

• Your agent can turn real investigations into structured runbooks and save them to Knowledge settings.
• You can upload files manually through the portal UI in Builder → Knowledge settings. It supports many formats, including PDF, Office documents, and images.
• The system indexes uploaded documents for semantic search, and they're available in all future conversations.
• To update documents, upload them by using the same filename.

Troubleshooting

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