SSMS

In the Ultra Transcenders books

AZ-305SC-500DP-600DP-700DP-800

Each book explains SSMS in context, with comparison tables and the common traps.

Terms in this definition

• Chat message roles

  Labels on chat messages: instructions go under system, the person's input under user, the model's previous answers under assistant, and results returned by a called tool under tool (or function).

• SQL Server

  The relational database from Microsoft that organisations host and run themselves, in their own data centres or on VMs. Its engine also sits underneath the Azure SQL services and SQL database in Fabric.

• Schema

  The middle part of a Unity Catalog name (catalog.schema.table), grouping tables, views, volumes, functions and models inside a catalog. A grant on it covers everything in it now and later, and nothing inside can be reached without USE SCHEMA.

Related terms

• Active Directory - Integrated

  Sign-in choice in SSMS, since renamed Microsoft Entra Integrated, that silently passes on a hybrid user's existing Windows credentials using federation or seamless SSO.

• Active Directory - Password

  SSMS sign-in choice, since renamed Microsoft Entra Password, that prompts for a Microsoft Entra user name and password.

• Agent mode

  Lets GitHub Copilot chat take several steps towards a goal, running tools and queries as you approve them. Don't treat that approval as a security boundary in SSMS 22.7 or later: every query uses the login's own permissions anyway.

• AGENTS.md

  A Markdown file format, recognised across different AI coding agents, for telling them how to behave. Copilot on GitHub looks for AGENTS.md files in a repo; SSMS looks for extended properties of that name on database objects and follows them.

• AMO

  A .NET client library that SSMS and Visual Studio use to administer Analysis Services servers and define their objects; for tabular models, TOM (the Tabular Object Model) builds on top of it.

• BYOM

  Lets SSMS users plug their own models into GitHub Copilot Chat with an API key, whether from Azure, Foundry Local, OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or xAI. It is unavailable on Copilot Business and Enterprise.

• CONSTITUTION.md

  A database-level extended property in SSMS with Copilot instructions that outrank every other set. If agentExecuteAsUser appears in its front matter, Copilot's queries execute as that user by means of EXECUTE AS.

• Content exclusion

  A GitHub Copilot Business and Enterprise setting that keeps selected files out of Copilot's use. SSMS respects it from version 22.4.1.