Read records from any ServiceNow table using an encoded query. This is the main tool for answering questions about incidents, changes, users, CIs or anything else stored on the instance. Read-only. Results are capped by the server's policy and every cap applied is reported in the result.

Fetch a single record by its 32-character sys_id. Use this after a query has given you an id, or when the user supplies one. Returns a clear 'no such record' message rather than an error if nothing matches.

Count records matching a query without transferring any of them. One request, a few bytes, and no context cost regardless of the number. Prefer this over querying with a large limit whenever the question is 'how many'.

List a table's columns with their types, labels and reference targets, including columns inherited from parent tables - most of an incident's fields are declared on 'task', and a listing that omitted them would be misleading. Call this before writing a query against an unfamiliar table, or when a query returns unexpectedly little.

Search the instance's tables by system name or label. Use it to turn a user's words - 'the change requests', 'our CMDB servers' - into the system name the other tools need. Tables blocked by this server's policy are omitted, and the count of omissions reported.

The full ServiceNow encoded-query operator reference, with worked examples. Makes no network call. Read this before guessing at query syntax - encoded queries look enough like SQL to invite the wrong habits, and a malformed query returns an empty result set rather than an error, which is easy to misread as 'no matches'.

Verify that credentials work, report which account the server authenticates as, and show the limits currently in force. Start here when another tool fails with a permission error, to tell 'wrong credentials' apart from 'right credentials, missing role'.