# Search Connected Apps

## Search Connected Apps

Search Connected Apps lets your workflow query external applications — like Google Drive, OneDrive, SharePoint, or Slack — in real time, directly from an LLM node. Unlike a Knowledge Base, there is no indexing step: Stack AI searches the live content in your connected accounts at run time and passes the results straight to the model.

Use this when you need up-to-date information from files or messages that change frequently, or when you don't want to maintain a separate index.

<figure><img src="/files/Y49OvldtcTHLfQGJd8qp" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### Supported apps

| App          | What it searches                                     |
| ------------ | ---------------------------------------------------- |
| Google Drive | Files and documents in your Drive (full-text search) |
| OneDrive     | Files in your OneDrive (Microsoft Graph Search)      |
| SharePoint   | Files and list items in SharePoint sites             |
| Slack        | Messages across channels you have access to          |

### Adding a connected app to an LLM node

1. Open a workflow and click on the LLM node to open its settings panel.
2. Scroll to the **Knowledge Sources** section and click **Add Knowledge Sources**.
3. Select **Search Connected Apps** from the dropdown.
4. A provider picker opens — select the app you want to search (e.g. Google Drive).
5. Choose an existing connection from the list, or click **Add connection** to create a new one.
6. The app appears as a card under **Connected Apps** in the node settings.

Repeat steps 3–6 to add multiple apps. The node will search all of them in parallel at run time.

### Managing connections

Each connected app appears as a card in the **Connected Apps** section of the node settings. From the card you can:

* **Remove** the connection (trash icon) — the app will no longer be searched by this node.
* **Switch connection** (settings icon) — swap the connection without removing the app from the node. Useful if you have multiple accounts for the same provider.

### Using the tool in your prompt

When you add a connected app to an LLM node, Stack AI automatically makes a **Search Connected Apps** tool available to the model. For the model to actually use it, you need to reference it in the Instructions — otherwise the model may answer from its training knowledge without ever querying your connected apps.

Tell the model explicitly when and how to use the tool. For example:

> *"When the user asks a question, use the Search Connected Apps tool to look up relevant information from their Google Drive before answering. Always base your answer on the search results."*

You can also be more specific about the query strategy:

> *"Use the Search Connected Apps tool with a short 2–3 word keyword query that captures the core topic of the user's question. If the first search returns no useful results, try a different keyword."*

{% hint style="warning" %}
If you don't instruct the model to use the tool, it may skip the search entirely and respond from its own knowledge. It is good practice to include an explicit instruction.
{% endhint %}

<figure><img src="/files/sQmTGGDmaO1Kmrw7W44J" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### How the search works

When the workflow runs, the node automatically generates a keyword search query from the conversation context and sends it to each connected app simultaneously. For each result, Stack AI fetches the content — downloading and extracting text from binary files like PDFs or Word documents as needed — and passes the enriched chunks to the model with source citations.

#### Output

| Field               | Type         | Description                                           |
| ------------------- | ------------ | ----------------------------------------------------- |
| `results`           | Object array | The search results with extracted content             |
| `query`             | String       | The search query that was used                        |
| `sources_searched`  | Number       | Number of connections that were successfully searched |
| `extraction_errors` | String array | Files that failed content extraction                  |

{% hint style="info" %}
If the same Google Drive folder is connected to both a Knowledge Base and a Search Connected Apps node, Stack AI will prefer the cached Knowledge Base content when available, and fall back to live search for anything not yet indexed.
{% endhint %}


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# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.stackai.com/workflow-builder/core-nodes/ai-agent-node/knowledge-sources/search-connected-apps.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.