In the knowledge-driven economy, organizations must align knowledge resources with business strategies to achieve sustainable competitive advantage through knowledge strategy. This paper addresses the lack of a comprehensive overview of environmental scanning tools that support knowledge strategy formulation. Drawing on strategic management, futures studies, competitive intelligence, and knowledge management literature, this study developed a framework and toolkit for practitioners and knowledge management policy researchers. Five families were identified: macro-environmental (PESTEL, PMESII-PT), competitive (Five Forces, value-chain/group analysis), futures (Delphi, scenarios, cross-impact), prioritization (SWOT, ETOP/EFE, probability–impact) and technology-based tools (OSINT, text mining, RADAR-ES, platforms). A comparison evaluates data needs, cost, expertise, complexity, uncertainty fit and limitations; a decision guide maps organizational conditions to tool combinations. Environmental scanning is a fundamental pillar of knowledge strategy, enabling external knowledge acquisition, strategic knowledge integration, and innovation. The framework is extended beyond tool classification by offering a critical comparison and a context-sensitive decision guide. Together, these elements provide researchers and practitioners with a practical resource for selecting and combining scanning techniques across the principal stages of knowledge strategy formulation. The guide does not assume that any single method is universally superior; it recommends combinations according to data availability, organizational capacity, time horizon, and environmental uncertainty. Cost and complexity are presented as qualitative comparisons to support context-sensitive selection, not as empirical performance scores.