Microsoft Copilot Studio
Copilot Studio agents can query and edit your Atlas directly. Unlike Claude Desktop or Cursor, Copilot Studio runs in Microsoft's cloud, so there's nothing to install: you point it at the hosted Atlas endpoint and it connects over the internet.
Prerequisites
- A Copilot Studio agent with generative orchestration turned on. Without it, Copilot Studio won't offer MCP tools at all.
- Permission to add tools to that agent in your Microsoft tenant.
You do not need Node.js, and you do not need to install anything locally.
Add Atlas as a tool
- In Copilot Studio, open your agent and go to Tools
- Select Add a tool → New tool → Model Context Protocol
- Fill in the server details:
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Server name | Graphite Atlas |
| Server description | Query and edit Graphite Atlas business models — atlases, points, paths, views, and graph analytics. |
| Server URL | https://graphiteatlas.com/api/mcp |
The description matters more than it looks. Copilot Studio's orchestrator reads it to decide when to reach for Atlas, so describe what your Atlas actually holds.
- Under Authentication, choose OAuth 2.0, then Dynamic discovery
- Select Create, then Create a new connection and Add to agent
Each person using the agent signs into Atlas once and gets access to their own atlases. Nobody has to paste a token, and nothing expires and quietly breaks later.
Alternative: connect with an API key
If OAuth isn't available in your tenant, you can connect with a key instead. Same wizard, different authentication:
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Authentication | API key |
| Type | Header |
| Header name | Authorization |
When Copilot Studio asks you to create the connection, the value is the word Bearer, a space, then your API key:
Bearer eyJhbGciOi...
An API key connection is tied to one person's key and stops working when that key expires (90 days maximum). Everyone using the agent shares that person's access. OAuth is the better choice for anything beyond a demo.
Give the agent starter context
Copilot Studio has no equivalent to Claude's skills, so a connected agent knows how to call the Atlas tools but nothing about how to use them well. Two starter files close that gap:
- Download agent instructions → — paste into your agent's Instructions field. Covers where to start, how to ground answers in real Points, and the two distinctions an agent otherwise gets wrong.
- Download knowledge file → — upload under Knowledge. The full type vocabulary, the relationships, and a table mapping common questions to the traversal that answers them.
Both are starting points. Edit them to match your organization: the type names are the standard Atlas language and apply to every atlas, but the examples are generic and worth replacing with your own.
Verify it works
In the agent's test pane, ask: "List my atlases."
The agent should call the list_atlases tool and come back with your atlases by name. From there, try "What does the invoice approval process look like?" to confirm it can read your model.
Troubleshooting
No Atlas tools show up in the agent. Generative orchestration is off. Turn it on in the agent's settings and re-open the Tools page.
"Enter the complete server path to continue." The Server URL needs the full path, including /api/mcp. https://graphiteatlas.com on its own won't work.
Sign-in loop, or the connection never completes. Confirm the URL is exactly https://graphiteatlas.com/api/mcp, with no trailing slash.
A tool shows up but its inputs look wrong. Copilot Studio treats fixed-choice inputs as free text, so an agent can pass a value Atlas rejects. Naming the exact value in your prompt ("use the map view") usually settles it.
401 Unauthorized. With an API key, the value needs the Bearer prefix and the header name has to be Authorization. If the key is more than 90 days old, generate a new one.
What your agent can do
Copilot Studio gets the same tools every MCP client gets: full read and write on atlases, points, paths, and views, plus analytics, graph algorithms, and Cypher queries.
Turn most of them off. A focused set behaves far more reliably than the whole toolbox, and a read-only set can't damage your model. On the agent's Tools tab, select the Graphite Atlas server, switch Allow all off, and use the per-tool toggles to enable only what you need. A good read-only starting set:
list_atlases get_atlas_brief search_points get_point
get_node_neighborhood search_paths query_cypher lookup_ontology
With Allow all off, any tool added to the server later stays off until you enable it, so the agent's surface can't widen without you.
Trouble connecting? Email us at [email protected]