What You Need to Know
A Project's knowledge is the material that Claude uses inside that Project. The material reaches the Project by one of two routes. An upload puts a copy into the Project's knowledge base: documents, text, code and other files. A connector links Claude to the live source, such as Google Drive. Each route has properties the other lacks. The choice of route depends on how the material changes.
This lesson uses one made-up example throughout: a property management company. A member of the tenant services team creates a Project for answering tenant questions and planning repair visits. The Project is private: she does not share it with colleagues. The company's standard lease terms and building rules barely change. The repair visit schedule is a Google Doc in Drive. It changes every week.
A Snapshot or the Live Source
An uploaded file is a copy taken on the day of upload. Every user of the Project sees the same copy, so it is stable and predictable. When the source is superseded, which means that a newer version replaces it, the copy stays as it was. Nothing tells you that the source was superseded. The copy looks as current in six months as on the day of upload. This stable copy suits the lease terms. It does not suit the repair visit schedule, because a copy of the schedule would be wrong within a week.
A connector suits material that changes, because the connector reaches the live source when you ask. The Google Workspace documentation states that Google Docs added to chats and projects sync directly from Google Drive. It says that, as a result, you are always working with the latest version. The documentation also states that Claude only accesses your data when you explicitly ask a question or request an action that requires it. It states that Claude then retrieves the minimum information needed.
The latest version includes a colleague's half-finished edit at the moment of your question. If a colleague is halfway through moving Tuesday's repair visits, Claude reads them half moved. Live material includes unfinished changes like this, so it is often better to upload stable reference documents.
Permissions and Governance
Not every workplace lets each person enable connectors for themselves. On Team and Enterprise plans, an Owner or Primary Owner needs to enable connectors for the organisation before members can use them. These are the administrator roles of the workspace. If connectors are off in your workspace, the right step is to ask whoever administers the workspace, not to improvise.
Through a connector, each person has the same access that they already have in the connected service. If someone cannot access a file in the source system, the connector cannot access it from Claude either. So two colleagues who ask about the same Drive folder in their own chats can get different answers. The difference comes from the permission system, not from a fault in Claude.
Some connectors can also take actions in connected services, not only read data. The Gmail connector can send, reply to and forward email from your own account. By default Claude asks for your approval before each of these actions. The tenant services team member still approves each reply to a tenant before Claude sends it.
On Team and Enterprise plans, an Owner sets two more limits. First, an Owner decides whether members can let these actions run without asking each time. Second, an Owner can limit which actions a connector can take for the whole organisation. For each permission, the Owner chooses Always allow, Needs approval or Blocked. For example, the property company's Owner can let Claude search and summarise email but block it from sending. Members cannot override these limits. Your approval is a choice about one email. The Owner's setting decides which actions are possible at all.
Current state: the Drive route and chat sharing
Checked 13 November 2026. The Google Workspace connectors article says that you can add a Google Doc from Drive only to the Files of a private Project. You add a document by searching your recent documents or pasting its link. The option is disabled for shared Projects. So a Google Doc that changes reaches a shared Project as an upload that one named person replaces and dates. In a private Project, route the material by how it changes. On Team and Enterprise plans, the connectors article also describes a sharing setting. If the organisation turns off "Share chats that use connectors", members cannot share chats that use connectors or synced content. Synced content is material that a connector syncs to Claude, such as a Google Doc added from Drive. The rule also covers every chat in a Project that has synced content.
Retrieval, Not Cover-to-Cover Reading
When a Project has a substantial knowledge base, Claude does not read all of it on every question. The documentation describes how Claude searches project knowledge and loads only the most relevant content. This search, called retrieval or RAG, activates as a project approaches or exceeds the limits of its context window. A context window is the amount of text Claude can hold at one time. Retrieval has to find the right document among all the material that you supplied.
Two documented steps help. Clear, descriptive file names help retrieval find the right material. For example, "standard-lease-terms" is a better name than "final-v2-new". You can also name a specific document in your prompt to focus the search on it.
Curation Beats Completeness
A Project's knowledge is not an archive. Every document that is never needed adds unneeded material to the search space, which is the material that Claude searches. Such a document also gives Claude a chance to quote it at the wrong moment. A small set of relevant documents is better than a bulk upload. Remove files that are no longer in active use, rather than keeping them.
When you receive a shared drive, pick the few documents that the work needs. Route each document by how it changes. Route material that changes, such as the repair visit schedule, through a connector to its live source. Upload stable reference material, such as the building rules. A colleague who wants you to add everything to the Project means well. The cost appears later, as answers based on the wrong document.
In the exam
Exam questions test whether you match the route to the material. In almost every question, the clue is how the material changes. Domain 6 asks whether a document is permitted in the Project at all, on privacy, contractual or policy grounds. This objective is about managing material that is already allowed in the Project.
What to notice in the exam
The right answer to an upload-or-connector question depends on how the material changes, never on how important the material is. Route the weekly repair visit schedule through the connector, however trivial it looks. Upload the lease terms, which barely change, however important they are.
Exam Traps
Bringing in the whole shared drive so nothing is missing
The dump reads as diligence and is the posture curation exists to correct. Retrieval must find the right document among everything supplied, so every irrelevant file makes the relevant one harder to surface and more likely to be displaced by a wrong-moment quote.
Choosing between upload and connector by how important the material is
An upload is a snapshot that goes stale silently, however important it is. Frequently revised material suits a connector, stable material an upload.
Having a Team-plan user switch on an organisation connector themselves
An Owner or Primary Owner must enable connectors for the organisation before members can use them, so the right step is to ask the workspace administrator. Options in which the candidate tries to enable connectors personally are testing exactly this governance step.
Practice Scenario
A customer service team leader at a bank is setting up her private Project for replies to customers. The savings rate list and the branch opening hours are Google Docs in Drive, and they change every week. The account terms, the complaints policy and the staff handbook barely change. A colleague suggests adding the whole shared drive so that everything is available. What is the best setup?
Build Exercise
Route a Real Project's Material by How It Changes
What you'll learn
- How to classify each document by how often it changes
- How to route material that changes through a connector and stable material as uploads
- How to check connector governance before relying on it
- How to test which version of a changed document the Project actually quotes
- List every document a recurring piece of your work needs, then mark each one: changes weekly or monthly, or barely changes at all
Why: The routing decision is made per document, and how often a document changes is what the whole objective depends on.
You should see: A two-column list: documents that change on one side, stable documents on the other.
- Upload the current versions of the stable set to the Project knowledge and note the date
Why: Stable material gets the properties uploads are good at: predictable, identical for everyone, and consulted without depending on a live source.
You should see: The stable documents in the knowledge base with a dated note of when they were uploaded.
- For the documents that change, identify where the live version is actually stored; if it is in Google Drive, the Project is private and your workplace allows the connector, add those documents from Drive rather than uploading copies
Why: A connector keeps material that changes current without anyone remembering to re-upload, which is the failure mode uploads cannot avoid.
You should see: The documents that change, reachable through the Drive connector, or a written request to your workspace administrator if the connector is not yet enabled.
- Be strict: remove anything you listed only because it might one day be useful, and give the files that remain clear descriptive names
Why: Every document that is never needed adds unneeded material to the search, and well-named files help the right material get found.
You should see: A shorter knowledge list where every file is needed for a task and its name says what it is.
- Test with a question whose answer changed recently and check which version the Project quotes
Why: The test proves the routing: connected material should answer with the current version, and an out-of-date answer means a document that changes was uploaded.
You should see: An answer citing the current version, or a specific file you now know to re-route.
Sources
- Retrieval augmented generation (RAG) for projects — Anthropic
- Use connectors to extend Claude's capabilities — Anthropic
- Use Google Workspace connectors — Anthropic
- How do usage and length limits work? — Anthropic
- What are projects? — Anthropic
- Claude Certified Associate – Foundations Exam Guide — Anthropic