Hacktoberfest 2026: the issues maintainers tagged for October, open and beginner-friendly. Browse Hacktoberfest issues

Enable Connection Metadata Navigation in Dataflow MCP Tools

Open
  • Is something wrong?
#39 0 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

Nobody has claimed this yet.

Assessment

Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
csharp
Domain
api, tooling

Research direction

Start by tracing the existing get_decoded_dataflow_definition tool and the surrounding Dataflow MCP tool entry points. Define how get_dataflow_connections should resolve connection metadata, enumerate schemas, and report credential status; done means it returns the specified connection details for supported data sources with tests covering the output.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

enhancement schema-discovery

Title: Enable Connection Metadata Navigation in Dataflow MCP Tools

Problem:
Currently, exploring a dataflow's connections requires:

  1. Calling get_decoded_dataflow_definition to extract raw connection JSON
  2. Parsing embedded IDs (ClusterId, DatasourceId, lakehouseId, workspaceId) from nested strings
  3. Writing custom M queries to enumerate tables/schemas within those connections

There's no direct way to answer "what data sources does this dataflow connect to, and what's inside them?"

Proposed Solution:
Add a get_dataflow_connections tool that returns:

  • Connection type (Lakehouse, SQL, Web, etc.)
  • Resolved metadata (workspace name, lakehouse/database name, not just GUIDs)
  • Available tables/entities with column schemas
  • Connection credentials status (configured/missing)

Example Output:

{
  "connections": [{
    "type": "Lakehouse",
    "workspaceName": "DIExplorations",
    "lakehouseName": "olist_lakehouse",
    "tables": [
      {"name": "customers", "columns": [...], "rowCount": 99441},
      {"name": "orders", "columns": [...], "rowCount": 99441}
    ]
  }]
}

Value:

  • Eliminates manual M query exploration
  • Enables agents to reason about data lineage without trial-and-error
  • Foundation for schema-aware query generation
Dominant language
C#
Stars
42
Forks
19
No merged PRs in 30d

Getting set up

We have not checked this project's setup files yet. Start from its README, and see our first-contribution guide for the general steps.

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

More from microsoft/DataFactory.MCP

All issues in microsoft/DataFactory.MCP

Similar issues

More C# issues

Get new issues in your inbox

A short digest of beginner-friendly GitHub issues.