The Skylight Playground provides an interactive environment to deploy the built-in Windows agent without writing any code. You can give natural language instructions to the agent and watch it perform tasks in real-time on a Windows desktop.

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Create Your Account

First, you need to sign up for a Skylight account. The free plan includes $5 in credit for instance runtime, built-in agent steps, and file downloads.

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Get Started

  1. Visit the Playground
  2. Click “New Computer” to launch a new Windows desktop
  3. Once the computer is ready, click “View”
  4. Enter your instructions in the prompt box
  5. Click “Run Agent” to start the agent

The agent will interpret your natural language instructions and perform the requested tasks on the Windows desktop. You can watch the agent work in real-time through the livestream.

The livestream is interactive—take control of the mouse at any time, even while the agent is running. If you do, the agent will recognize your input and adjust its actions accordingly.

Clicking “Stop Agent” will halt the agent while keeping the instance running. You can then edit your instructions and re-run the agent.

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How the agent works

A computer-using agent operates by observing the screen, interpreting the current context, and choosing appropriate actions to interact with applications — much like a person using a computer. It continuously adapts its behavior based on changes in the interface, allowing it to navigate and complete tasks autonomously (see Agents).

If previous agent runs have been performed on the desktop instance, the agent will remember them (see Knowledge).

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Writing effective instructions

The Skylight agent is designed to reason logically about each step without needing explicit instructions. For example, you can simply ask it to “Make a presentation about Pied Piper”, and it will know to open PowerPoint, add slides, populate with content, and save the file. If it needs extra input, it will ask for it.

For more granular control over the agent’s actions, provide detailed prompts like:

  • “Create a budget spreadsheet on Excel with income and expenses columns and save it as budget.xlsx”
  • “Open Paint and draw a house with a red roof and a tree on the left”

You can also chain multiple instructions together:

  • “Open Word, type ‘Hello World’, save the document as hello.docx, then open PowerPoint and do the same thing”

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Understanding agent output

The agent provides live detailed feedback about its actions:

  • Steps: Individual actions taken to complete the task (live)
  • Summary: An overview of what was accomplished (presented when the agent finishes the task)
  • Human-in-the-loop: If the agent needs extra input, it will ask for it

Information in the summary is automatically saved into the knowledge of the instance to provide context to the agent for future tasks (see Knowledge).

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Download Files

Agents can create and save files (e.g., PowerPoint and Excel documents) on the virtual desktop. These files can be downloaded to your local machine via the Playground. Files are preserved while the instance is running or hibernated but will be wiped when the instance times out or is terminated.

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Instance Management

To optimize costs, you can manage the state of your instances based on usage.

  • Running: When you start an instance, it is automatically set to “Running”, meaning you can interact with it and operate it with the AI agent. New computers start with a fresh Windows desktop and standard applications.
  • Hibernate: When not actively using the desktop, you can pause it. This preserves the state without incurring full runtime costs. Hibernated instances maintain knowledge, files, and the desktop state.
  • Resume: Hibernated instances can be resumed to “Running”.
  • Terminate: Completely shut down the instance. Terminated instances cannot be recovered, and all information (including knowledge, files, and desktop state) is wiped. Be sure to save any important work before terminating.
  • Timeout: Instances automatically terminate after a specified period of inactivity (default is 60 minutes).