author

Purpose

Turn a table into a portable data.<name>.flint object. The host compiles the same object to Vega-Lite and renders it with the local Desktop runtime or the Web server runtime. This skill is an authoring contract, not a compiler.

Input shape

Put the chart input beside the table rows and reference it with a chart widget:

{
  "data": {
    "sales": {
      "type": "table",
      "rows": [{"month": "Jan", "revenue": 120}],
      "flint": {
        "chart_spec": {
          "chartType": "Bar Chart",
          "title": "Revenue by month",
          "encodings": {"x": "month", "y": "revenue"},
          "baseSize": {"width": 560, "height": 320},
          "canvasSize": {"width": 900, "height": 520}
        },
        "semantic_types": {"month": "Month", "revenue": "Currency"},
        "options": {"addTooltips": true}
      }
    }
  },
  "widgets": [{"type": "chart", "data": "sales"}]
}

Rules

• Use inline rows only. Never put secrets, credentials, arbitrary URLs, or executable expressions in the chart input.
• Keep the table bounded: at most 2,000 rows and 64 columns for a chart.
• Use a real Flint template name such as Bar Chart, Line Chart, or Scatter Plot; encodings refer only to fields present in the rows.
• Mark important numeric claims with the surrounding Surface evidence/claims fields. A chart is not evidence by itself.
• Preserve the table as the source of truth. The chart is a view over the rows, not a second copy of the dataset.

Verification

The host rejects oversized or malformed input, disallows remote data sources, and reports a renderer error instead of silently showing a blank chart. A successful Desktop/Web render means the input compiled and the Vega renderer completed; it does not verify the underlying data claims.

Provenance

This workflow follows the public Flint Chart authoring contract: https://github.com/microsoft/flint-chart/blob/main/agent-skills/flint-chart-author/SKILL.md