Build a slide deck from a single prompt
Scout 12 June 2026 · by Susanth Sutheesh · 12 min read. Task: Scout 12 June 2026 · by Susanth Sutheesh · 12 min read ↗ the 7 bundled skills Microsoft Scout ships with on day one — plain-English breakdown of what each one does, plus the MCP servers, browser, shell, M365 connections, heartbeats, and sub-agent layers around them. 🔄 Part of the Microsoft Scout — Complete Guide series. This is the feature-tour spoke. Bundled skills can change between releases — this page updates as Microsoft ships. Last verified: 29 September 2026 · Scout version 0.23.0.20260608.1. Naming update: Microsoft is renaming Scout to Autopilot (announced 25 Sep 2026, expanding to private preview); the desktop app is still branded “Microsoft Scout” as it rolls out, so read “Scout” here as Autopilot (formerly Scout). The hub for this series — Microsoft Scout — The Complete Guide — covers what Scout is, how it differs from Copilot, what it costs, and the honest take. This spoke is the feature-tour reference. The seven bundled skills Skills in Scout are markdown files (one folder per skill, with a SKILL.md and supporting assets). The language model picks the right skill for each request based on the description in the SKILL.md frontmatter. Today’s Scout install ships seven bundled skills at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Scout\resources\bundled-skills\: The interactive HTML dashboard Scout’s web-artifacts-builder skill produced from a one-line prompt (“Show me a sample interactive HTML dashboard for monthly cloud cost trends — use fake data”). All the numbers are demo data; the controls, KPI cards, and dual-chart layout are what the skill ships in a single self-contained HTML file. No build step, no SPA, opens in any browser. Sidebar — Microsoft Learn currently documents five of these (Word, Excel, PowerPoint as one row, Loop, and Web Artifacts Builder). The install ships seven. Excalidraw and Expense Report are on disk and routable by the language model the moment you install Scout, but they aren’t called out in the public overview yet. Worth knowing because both are surprisingly capable. The Expense Report skill in particular hints at how Scout is being shaped for Microsoft enterprise workflows — it knows about AMEX matching and hotel itemisation. You can also add your own custom skills by dropping a SKILL.md into your skills directory (Scout reads from ~/.copilot/skills/ — the same folder Copilot CLI uses, which is why some of my skills carry across from my Clawpilot days). More on authoring skills in the MCP & custom skills spoke. Skills in action — see them work, copy the prompts The seven bundled skills above aren’t theoretical — they fire when the language model picks them based on what you ask. Here’s six of them in action below (the seventh, web-artifacts-builder, was the cost dashboard at the top of this post — same pattern, different output type). Every prompt is copy-paste ready and uses fake numbers so you can re-run them safely in any tenant for customer demos or pilots. docx — draft a Word memo from one prompt Scout names the docx skill and the underlying library (docx-js / [email protected]) right inside its chain-of-thought. The model picks the skill from the SKILL.md description; you don’t call it by name. Prompt to try it yourself (copy-paste — works in any Scout install): What Scout produced in one prompt — a real .docx with a proper header, section structure, and numbered lists. All figures are illustrative per the prompt instruction. Saved straight to your Downloads folder, ready to refine. xlsx — build a real .xlsx with live formulas Scout names the skill explicitly — “I need to use the xlsx skill” — before doing anything. That’s the routing logic working out loud. Prompt to try it yourself: The workbook with live SUMIF formulas in the Quarterly Subtotal column, an additive SUM total of $71,455 across 12 fake training lines. Course names are public Microsoft titles; the numbers are made-up. Bar-chart sheet is a separate tab. pptx — slide deck from one prompt Scout names both the SKILL (pptx) and the underlying library (pptxgenjs). Same routing pattern as docx and xlsx. Prompt to try it yourself: A full six-slide deck with proper Microsoft-style design, KPI tiles, a bar chart, multi-column layouts, and a risk grid — from one prompt. (The title-slide author footer is redacted because this preview run used my own name; you’d get your own.) loop — careful keyboard, no API needed; tools: Microsoft Scout. Human role: The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.; limitations: Prerequisites include a Microsoft Scout installation (version 0.23.0.20260608.1 or later) and access to the bundled pptx skill. The tool relies on the language model's routing logic, which may vary by prompt phrasing. Custom skills can be added, but the default pptx skill is pre-installed. Human approval is necessary for finalizing any generated content, especially for regulated environments where Scout's browser egress policies might restrict external data access..
Tools
Published on Agent Work Atlas:
Overview
Scout 12 June 2026 · by Susanth Sutheesh · 12 min read
Workflow
Scout 12 June 2026 · by Susanth Sutheesh · 12 min read ↗ the 7 bundled skills Microsoft Scout ships with on day one — plain-English breakdown of what each one does, plus the MCP servers, browser, shell, M365 connections, heartbeats, and sub-agent layers around them. 🔄 Part of the Microsoft Scout — Complete Guide series. This is the feature-tour spoke. Bundled skills can change between releases — this page updates as Microsoft ships. Last verified: 29 September 2026 · Scout version 0.23.0.20260608.1. Naming update: Microsoft is renaming Scout to Autopilot (announced 25 Sep 2026, expanding to private preview); the desktop app is still branded “Microsoft Scout” as it rolls out, so read “Scout” here as Autopilot (formerly Scout). The hub for this series — Microsoft Scout — The Complete Guide — covers what Scout is, how it differs from Copilot, what it costs, and the honest take. This spoke is the feature-tour reference. The seven bundled skills Skills in Scout are markdown files (one folder per skill, with a SKILL.md and supporting assets). The language model picks the right skill for each request based on the description in the SKILL.md frontmatter. Today’s Scout install ships seven bundled skills at C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Scout\resources\bundled-skills\: The interactive HTML dashboard Scout’s web-artifacts-builder skill produced from a one-line prompt (“Show me a sample interactive HTML dashboard for monthly cloud cost trends — use fake data”). All the numbers are demo data; the controls, KPI cards, and dual-chart layout are what the skill ships in a single self-contained HTML file. No build step, no SPA, opens in any browser. Sidebar — Microsoft Learn currently documents five of these (Word, Excel, PowerPoint as one row, Loop, and Web Artifacts Builder). The install ships seven. Excalidraw and Expense Report are on disk and routable by the language model the moment you install Scout, but they aren’t called out in the public overview yet. Worth knowing because both are surprisingly capable. The Expense Report skill in particular hints at how Scout is being shaped for Microsoft enterprise workflows — it knows about AMEX matching and hotel itemisation. You can also add your own custom skills by dropping a SKILL.md into your skills directory (Scout reads from ~/.copilot/skills/ — the same folder Copilot CLI uses, which is why some of my skills carry across from my Clawpilot days). More on authoring skills in the MCP & custom skills spoke. Skills in action — see them work, copy the prompts The seven bundled skills above aren’t theoretical — they fire when the language model picks them based on what you ask. Here’s six of them in action below (the seventh, web-artifacts-builder, was the cost dashboard at the top of this post — same pattern, different output type). Every prompt is copy-paste ready and uses fake numbers so you can re-run them safely in any tenant for customer demos or pilots. docx — draft a Word memo from one prompt Scout names the docx skill and the underlying library (docx-js / [email protected]) right inside its chain-of-thought. The model picks the skill from the SKILL.md description; you don’t call it by name. Prompt to try it yourself (copy-paste — works in any Scout install): What Scout produced in one prompt — a real .docx with a proper header, section structure, and numbered lists. All figures are illustrative per the prompt instruction. Saved straight to your Downloads folder, ready to refine. xlsx — build a real .xlsx with live formulas Scout names the skill explicitly — “I need to use the xlsx skill” — before doing anything. That’s the routing logic working out loud. Prompt to try it yourself: The workbook with live SUMIF formulas in the Quarterly Subtotal column, an additive SUM total of $71,455 across 12 fake training lines. Course names are public Microsoft titles; the numbers are made-up. Bar-chart sheet is a separate tab. pptx — slide deck from one prompt Scout names both the SKILL (pptx) and the underlying library (pptxgenjs). Same routing pattern as docx and xlsx. Prompt to try it yourself: A full six-slide deck with proper Microsoft-style design, KPI tiles, a bar chart, multi-column layouts, and a risk grid — from one prompt. (The title-slide author footer is redacted because this preview run used my own name; you’d get your own.) loop — careful keyboard, no API needed
Reported result
The source describes a successful generation of a six-slide deck with Microsoft-style design, KPI tiles, and charts from a single prompt. However, specific business outcomes, time savings, or error rates are not reported. The author notes that the title-slide footer was redacted in the preview, implying the tool correctly inserts user-specific metadata. No quantitative metrics on adoption or efficiency are provided.
Human role
The original post does not say how a person stayed involved.
Limitations
Prerequisites include a Microsoft Scout installation (version 0.23.0.20260608.1 or later) and access to the bundled pptx skill. The tool relies on the language model's routing logic, which may vary by prompt phrasing. Custom skills can be added, but the default pptx skill is pre-installed. Human approval is necessary for finalizing any generated content, especially for regulated environments where Scout's browser egress policies might restrict external data access.
Try it
Act as a business analyst using Microsoft Scout. I need to create a presentation for [replaceable: business context, e.g., Q1 Cloud Review]. 1. Input the following prompt into Scout: 'Create a 5-slide PowerPoint deck called [replaceable: filename].pptx in my Downloads folder. Title slide: [replaceable: title]. Slides: 1) Executive Summary, 2) [replaceable: data trend], 3) Top 3 Wins, 4) Top 3 Risks, 5) [replaceable: next steps]. Use a clean Microsoft-style design.' 2. Wait for Scout to route to the pptx skill and generate the file. 3. Open the generated .pptx file and verify the slide count, design consistency, and data accuracy. 4. If the output is incorrect, adjust the prompt and retry. 5. Once satisfied, save the file to [replaceable: target location]. Measure success by the number of manual edits required. If more than 20% of slides need significant rework, the prompt needs refinement. Do not publish or send the deck without human confirmation of all figures and branding.
Source reports are not independently verified. Publication date is the catalog publication date, not the original article date.