Source Management

Source Management is an official skill from Anthropic’s knowledge-work-plugins repository. It belongs to the Enterprise Search plugin, which the provider describes as primarily designed for Cowork while also working in Claude Code. The skill is not a standalone search engine, an MCP server, or a service that supplies credentials for enterprise systems. It is editorial guidance for Claude: it explains how an agent can identify connected MCP sources, explain missing sources, prioritize sources by query type, and communicate temporary rate limits clearly. The primary source is the official enterprise-search/skills/source-management path in Anthropic’s repository.

Purpose and role

Enterprise Search brings together searches across connected workplace tools, according to the provider. Source Management is the control layer that helps determine which sources are available and how they should participate in a research task. The skill names common source types such as chat, email, cloud storage, project management, CRM, and knowledge bases. A source is treated as connected when matching MCP tool prefixes are available in the current environment. The skill does not ask the agent to guess an unfamiliar connection. Instead, the agent should inspect the tools that are actually available and disclose the scope of the search.

Explaining missing connections

When only a small number of sources are connected, Claude should first state the number and names of available sources, according to the provider. It can then explain which additional sources would help with messages, email, documents, tasks, customer records, or internal knowledge articles. If a person asks about a specific tool that is not connected, the skill describes a general and safer path through MCP settings: add the server configuration, complete authentication in the intended client, and check the connection again. The skill stores no tokens and does not require secret values in its catalog text. The exact setup depends on the MCP server, the organization, and the client’s policies.

Priorities rather than blind exclusions

Different questions benefit from different starting points. Decision questions typically begin with chat conversations, confirming emails, and decision documents. Status questions may begin with a project tracker, followed by current discussions and status documents. For a document query, cloud storage and a knowledge base are natural first choices. Questions about expertise can combine chat, task assignments, document authorship, and CRM records. Policy questions should primarily use official knowledge bases and handbooks. These sequences are weighting guidance, not permission to omit every other source. The agent should not skip sources without a reason because important evidence may live in an unexpected system.

Rate limits and source health

MCP sources can respond with HTTP 429, messages about too many requests, or exhausted quotas. Source Management recommends avoiding an immediate aggressive retry. Claude should continue with other sources, tell the user about the limitation, and identify the time range actually covered when a digest is interrupted. A useful source status can distinguish available, unconnected, and temporarily rate-limited systems. This improves traceability but does not prevent factual errors. Results based on a limited source set must not be presented as a complete statement of company knowledge.

Boundaries and security

The skill grants no permissions and does not replace access control. Depending on configuration, a connected MCP server may return confidential messages, files, tasks, or customer data. Organizations should independently review data classification, least-privilege access, logging, and approval requirements. External content may contain misleading instructions; search results are data, not automatic authorization for follow-up actions. Write-capable tools and connection changes require explicit confirmation. According to the provider, Source Management automates detection and prioritization within the existing environment, not enterprise governance. Check the official source and Claude Code documentation for current details. This catalog entry states no fixed prices because terms for Anthropic, Cowork, Claude Code, and connected MCP services are governed separately.