using-glean
Use Glean MCP tools to answer questions about company documents, internal wikis, policies, RFCs, design docs, people, teams, meetings, decisions, action items, email, calendar events, internal code, and the user's own work activity. Reach for this whenever the answer lives in enterprise systems rather than the local codebase or public web.
84
87%
Does it follow best practices?
Impact
66%
1.50xAverage score across 3 eval scenarios
Passed
No known issues
Using Glean
The Glean MCP server exposes a family of tools that let Claude query the user's company knowledge: documents, people, meetings, email, internal code, the user's activity feed, structured memory, and the knowledge graph. This skill is the entry point. It maps a user's question to the right tool, names the rules that apply across all of them, and links to per-tool reference files that carry the deep syntax.
Where these tools live
The tools listed below come from the user's Glean MCP server connection. Refer to them by their bare names (search, employee_search, meeting_lookup, …) — Claude resolves them against the active tool inventory.
If no Glean tools are visible, the user has not configured a Glean MCP server. Suggest /glean-core:mcp-setup.
Intent → tool decision tree
| The user is asking about... | Reach for | Reference |
|---|---|---|
| Documents, wikis, policies, RFCs, specs | search | search.md |
| A complex question that needs synthesis across sources | chat | chat.md |
| Internal source code, files, commits across repos | code_search | code-search.md |
| People, teams, org structure, reporting lines | employee_search | employee-search.md |
| Meetings, transcripts, decisions, action items | meeting_lookup | meeting-lookup.md |
| Gmail messages, threads, attachments | gmail_search | gmail-search.md |
| Outlook messages, threads, attachments | outlook_search | outlook-search.md |
| Reading a specific URL / document | read_document | read-document.md |
| The user's own recent activity (standup, weekly summary) | user_activity | user-activity.md |
| The user's stored memories / personalization | read_memory (+ memory_schema) | memory.md |
| Structured entity / relationship queries | knowledge_graph_query (+ knowledge_graph_schema) | knowledge-graph.md |
The reference files are loaded only when needed. Open the relevant one before invoking a tool you haven't used recently — each file carries the exact param shape, the filter syntax, and the pitfalls that have bitten previous calls.
Cross-tool rules
These apply regardless of which Glean tool is active. Internalize them, don't re-derive per call.
- Never use
searchfor people lookups. It searches documents; it doesn't index people. Useemployee_search. - Cite every claim with a URL. Glean returns links; surface them so the user can verify. No URL → likely fabricated.
- Permission-empty results are valid signals. If a tool returns nothing, that often means the user lacks access — not that the information is missing. Don't pad with weak alternatives; report empty cleanly.
- Prefer recent over old. Glean returns by relevance; for currency-sensitive questions, add a date filter or sort by recency rather than presenting stale top hits as authoritative.
- Vet before presenting. Apply the criteria in reference/vetting.md — relevance, freshness, authority. Better to return three vetted results than ten unfiltered ones.
Cross-cutting reference
- synthesis.md — patterns for combining multiple Glean tools when a single tool doesn't answer the question.
- vetting.md — how to evaluate source quality, freshness, and authority; when to communicate confidence to the user.
Glean platform agents
If the user's Glean instance has platform agents enabled, those agents may surface as additional MCP tools alongside the built-in tools above. The set is org-specific and can change at any time. See agents-as-tools.md for how to recognize, introspect, and invoke them.
- Repository
- gleanwork/claude-plugins
- Commit
39a5c99
- Last updated
- Created
Is this your skill?
If you maintain this skill, you can claim it as your own. Once claimed, you can manage eval scenarios, bundle related skills, attach documentation or rules, and ensure cross-agent compatibility.