As Copilot continues to evolve within SharePoint, a new and often misunderstood file has started appearing across sites: SHAREPOINT.md.
For many administrators and site owners, the first reaction is simple: "what is this file, and why is it here"? Its presence has sparked discussion in technical communities and raised questions about its purpose, value, and whether it needs to be managed or created manually.
Despite its understated nature, SHAREPOINT.md plays an increasingly relevant role in how Copilot understands and interacts with SharePoint content.
What is SHAREPOINT.md?
SHAREPOINT.md is a plain-text Markdown file that lives in a special document library called Agent Assets on a SharePoint site. When Copilot in SharePoint (formerly known as AI in SharePoint, previously the SharePoint Knowledge Agent) is active on your site, it reads this file automatically before responding to any user prompt.
Think of it as the standing brief you give a new team member before they start answering questions on your behalf, except the "team member" is AI, and the brief is loaded every single time a conversation starts on your site.
The file lives at /sites/YourSiteName/AgentAssets/SHAREPOINT.md. It must be named exactly SHAREPOINT.md; that name, in that library - for Copilot in SharePoint to pick it up automatically.
Why does it exist?
The problem it solves
Copilot in SharePoint is powerful, but without context it answers like a generalist. It knows what SharePoint is - but it doesn't know what your SharePoint site is for, what your libraries mean, what your column names represent, or what steps your team follows to get work done.
Without SHAREPOINT.md, a user might ask "where do I put a signed contract?" and get a generic answer about document libraries. With it, the AI can say "Signed contracts go into the Active Contracts library. Set Contract Status to Executed."
The bigger picture: Copilot in SharePoint's three capabilities
Microsoft's Copilot in SharePoint experience - rolling out to all Microsoft 365 Copilot tenants from mid-June 2026 - is built around three capabilities:
| Capability | Purpose | How |
|---|---|---|
| What to know | Site-level context | SHAREPOINT.md |
| How to act | Reusable AI behaviours | Skills (.md files in Agent Assets) |
| What to produce | Content generation | AI-assisted page and document creation |
SHAREPOINT.md is the "What to Know" layer. It's what turns a generic AI into one that speaks your organisation's language.
What goes inside the file?
The file uses standard Markdown headers. Each section gives the AI a different type of knowledge about your site. There is currently no official Microsoft Learn documentation covering the exact schema, but the community - and the AI itself - has mapped out a solid set of recommended sections:
| Section | What the AI uses it for |
|---|---|
| Site name & overview | Understand the site's purpose and frame every question in that context |
| AI guidance | Follow hard rules - what to say, and what to never say or imply |
| Document libraries | Know which library to reference and what key columns mean |
| Lists | Understand where reference data lives and how it feeds processes |
| Key pages | Direct users to the right page when they ask where to find something |
| Terminology & definitions | Interpret org-specific terms and column names correctly |
| Workflows & processes | Walk users through exact steps and flag which ones are manual |
| Guidelines & policies | Enforce rules when advising users how to work with content |
| Contacts & ownership | Point users to the right person when the AI can't help |
A few things that make the file work well in practice:
- Use real column names as they appear in SharePoint, not friendly labels
- Include valid choice values for status columns so the AI can use them when guiding users
- Keep instructions specific and direct - vague guidance produces vague answers
- Test after uploading - if responses don't improve, the instructions need to be more explicit
From an admin's perspective: should you create it?
Yes. And proactively.
1. It doesn't exist by default
Before you can create SHAREPOINT.md, the Agent Assets library itself needs to exist - and it doesn't appear automatically. It is enabled by activating the "Agents Assets" site feature, found under Site Settings → Site Collection Features. Only once that feature is active does the Agent Assets library appear in Site Contents.
After that, SHAREPOINT.md still needs to be created manually. The feature activation creates the library; it does not create the file. The AI will still function without it - it simply won't have any site-specific context to work from. Every site without a SHAREPOINT.md is an AI that knows it's on a SharePoint site, but nothing else about it.
2. It is a governance artifact
Treat it the same way you'd treat a site permission policy or a data classification guide. It should be version-controlled using SharePoint library versioning, edit-restricted to site owners or designated custodians, and tested before any changes go live, because every change affects every user interaction on the site.
3. It scales AI consistency across your tenant
In large organisations with dozens or hundreds of SharePoint sites, the quality of Copilot answers varies enormously from site to site. Sites with well-written SHAREPOINT.md files produce accurate, process-aware responses. Sites without them produce generic answers. Establishing a template and a rollout approach for SHAREPOINT.md across your key sites is one of the highest-leverage admin actions available right now.
4. It works alongside technical controls, not instead of them
SHAREPOINT.md shapes guidance, but it doesn't enforce permissions. If you need strict compliance - for example, preventing the AI from directing users to a restricted library - pair the guidance in the file with the appropriate SharePoint permissions and access controls.
How to create it
There are two approaches:
Option 1 - Ask Copilot to create it
If Copilot in SharePoint is active on your site, prompt it directly:
"Create a SHAREPOINT.md file in the Agent Assets library for this site. Ask me about the site's purpose, libraries, lists, terminology, and key workflows before writing the file."
Copilot uses its set_context_file tool to write the file based on your conversation. This is the fastest route to a working first draft.
Option 2 - Create it manually
- Navigate to Site Contents and open the Agent Assets
- Click New → File (or upload) and name the file
SHAREPOINT.md - Edit it directly in the browser using SharePoint's native Markdown editor, available since mid-2026
Bake it into every new site from day one
If SHAREPOINT.md doesn't exist by default, and it needs to exist on every meaningful SharePoint site in your tenant, the logical answer is to stop creating it manually site by site - and start provisioning it automatically.
Automate365 is BindTuning's workspace provisioning platform for Microsoft 365. It lets you build site templates - complete with document libraries, lists, pages, branding, and web parts - and deploy them consistently across your tenant whenever a new site is created.
The connection to SHAREPOINT.md is direct: include a pre-written SHAREPOINT.md in your Automate365 templates. Every time Automate365 provisions a new site from that template, the file comes with it - already in the Agent Assets library, already filled with the site type's standard structure, terminology, and AI guidance. AI-ready from the first day, for every site.
This also fits Automate365's governance story: enforcing structure at the moment of creation, not retrofitting it later.
Learn about Automate365Why now?
Copilot in SharePoint crossed an important threshold in mid-2026: it moved from opt-in to opt-out for all Microsoft 365 Copilot-licensed tenants. The AI is now on by default across your environment, and the quality of its answers is directly shaped by what site owners and admins have - or haven't - put in place.
SHAREPOINT.md is the lightweight, no-code mechanism Microsoft has given administrators to make that AI better: site by site, process by process, in plain English.
It is not a complex configuration file. It is not a developer artifact. It is a Markdown document that answers one question: what does this site do, and how does it do it?
If that question doesn't have a written answer on your sites yet, now is the time to write one.
