Yes, usually the Scout u are starting with is used to uncover the fog of war.
Since that is a difficult task for newer players ro do while managaing ur eco, the first scout (more precisely, every dark age scouting unit u start with) has the oltion of autoscout.
If clicked the autoscout will try to uncover ur most important starting resources and then will uncover the rest of the map, starting in the right corner.
This is a very thourough technique, but not very effective.
Therefore, if u create new scouts, they most likely will be used for offensive tasks.
If u lost ur scout u can make a new one, but u will have to scout for urself, which is great to practice not to rely on autoscout too much! 🙂