Microsoft Scout

Scout reads, sends, replies to and organizes Outlook mail, manages calendar events and inbox rules, reads and posts to Teams chats and channels, retrieves meeting transcripts, books rooms, and works with To Do, SharePoint Lists and files in OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams, including sharing with named people. WorkIQ searches across Microsoft 365 content and the directory, and on the machine Scout runs git, gh, curl and PowerShell. The desktop app also reaches MCP servers, which admins can block as a permission kind or a tool server.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/work-with-microsoft-365read 2026-10-24

Scout picks tools and works through a task step by step, showing progress as it goes, and queues follow up messages in order while it works. It launches background subagents of five kinds, Explore for codebase research, Task for builds, tests, lints and installs, Code review, Research with citations and a general agent with the full toolset, and each reports back when it finishes. Research agents take broad questions across several sources in parallel, and an automation can carry its own multistep workflow.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/use-microsoft-scoutread 2026-10-24

WorkIQ, switched on by default, lets Scout search across the Microsoft 365 content and people a user's account can reach, inside the tenant's existing permissions. Within the workspace, search covers file names and contents without a network call, and web research comes back with citations, with research agents gathering several sources at once for broad questions. Microsoft warns that answers can be wrong when source data is incomplete or outdated, and Scout treats email and web content as untrusted data.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/faqread 2026-10-24

Every action starts out needing confirmation, and shell commands fall into tiers that auto approve reads such as ls and git log, prompt for installs, pushes and network requests, and block dangerous commands outright. Before Scout sends mail, posts in Teams or runs a prompted command it shows the exact content or command, with Approve, Always allow and Deny. Users can mark sensitive paths that always ask, admins can force approval for every action beyond a read, background modes skip anything that would prompt, and work can be paused, redirected or canceled at any time.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/faqread 2026-10-24

Users sign in with a Microsoft 365 work or school account and a GitHub Copilot Business or Enterprise seat, and access opens only after an admin grants Frontier, deploys an Intune policy and signs an attestation. Device policies block tool servers, permission kinds, models, providers or browser destinations and confine file and shell access to the workspace.

Scout tracks sensitivity labels, never writes labeled content to an unprotected destination and does not train on customer data. Model processing runs through GitHub Copilot under GitHub's agreements, where Microsoft 365 residency, retention, label enforcement and eDiscovery do not apply.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/admin-access-overviewread 2026-10-24

Each action Scout takes appears in the conversation, with a preview of the content or exact command before approval, and the Heartbeat panel logs every check in while each automation keeps a run history. Session history sits in the user's OneDrive, where past conversations can be searched and restored, and credentials are redacted from logs and diagnostics. These views belong to each user, and the Scout admin controls set policy for what the agent may do without offering a review of what it did.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/microsoft-scout-responsible-ai-faqread 2026-10-24

Scout saves memories of preferences, decisions and context on its own, records whether each came from the session, an import or outside content, and lists them under Settings, View memories. Memory and session data live in the user's OneDrive inside the tenant, covered by the Microsoft DPA and the organization's Purview configuration, while automation instructions and tool output stay on the device. Memory is layered, so information in regular use persists and unused information fades, and past sessions can be searched and restored.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/microsoft-scout-responsible-ai-faqread 2026-10-24

Scout installs on the user's own Windows 11 or macOS 12 machine, keeps the files it creates in a local workspace and stores automation instructions and tool output on the device under the organization's endpoint controls, while memory and sessions sit in OneDrive inside the tenant. Prompts and content go through GitHub Copilot to Microsoft and outside model providers, so Microsoft 365 data residency commitments do not cover that processing. It is unavailable in GCC, GCC High, DoD and sovereign or national clouds, and availability otherwise follows Frontier enrollment.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/microsoft-scout-responsible-ai-faqread 2026-10-24

Scout ships bundled skills for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Loop and a Web Artifacts Builder for interactive HTML dashboards, which switch on when a task needs them, and five built in subagent types for exploring code, running tasks, reviewing code, research and general work. Custom skills are folders with a SKILL.md file, synced across devices or kept on one machine, and automations can be imported from GitHub repositories. Microsoft offers no gallery of ready made Scout agents or automation templates.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/faqread 2026-10-24

Heartbeat runs a prompt the user defines every 15 minutes, 30 minutes, hour or 2 hours, only on chosen work days and hours, and keeps a log of each check in. Automations start on a schedule such as every Monday at 9 AM, when a defined condition becomes true or once before switching off, each with its own reasoning effort and context size, and they can be imported from GitHub repositories. Work starts in the desktop app on Windows or macOS, including a compact Mini mode window, and there is no mobile client.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/use-microsoft-scoutread 2026-10-24

Scout draws its model catalog from GitHub Copilot, which connects to models from Microsoft and third party providers, including open source models and models from providers based in China, and the GitHub Copilot admin decides which are available. Users set a default model and reasoning effort, switch the model for a single message, choose a context window up to Max and set reasoning and context per automation. Admins can also block specific model IDs or whole providers such as anthropic or openai through Scout's own policies.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/faqread 2026-10-24

Scout is driven from its desktop app, where custom skills in SKILL.md files and connected MCP servers extend what it can do and automations can be imported from GitHub repositories. Microsoft is contributing policy conformance features back to OpenClaw, the open source project underneath Scout. No API, SDK or MCP server lets outside software start a Scout task, send it work or read its results.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/faqread 2026-10-24

Microsoft evaluates Scout on task completion, response quality and safety, and it advises users to start with simple tasks, treat output as drafts and thoroughly test whether complex or multistep work completes as expected. Custom skills are not validated by Microsoft. The Task and Code review subagents run tests on a user's code and review it, but there are no test cases, scored evaluations or comparisons for checking Scout's own behavior across changes.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/microsoft-scout-responsible-ai-faqread 2026-10-24

Scout drives a browser to navigate, click, fill forms, take screenshots, read console logs and network requests and extract text, and its bundled Loop skill edits Loop documents through that browser. On the machine it reads and writes files in the workspace and, once granted, in other folders, and runs builds, tests and scripts in the shell. Users can switch off the browser or shell tool groups, and admins can block browser automation from chosen origins or confine file and shell access to the workspace.

Sourcelearn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-scout/use-microsoft-scoutread 2026-10-24