excel-cli

Excel Automation with excelcli

Preconditions

• Windows host with Microsoft Excel installed (2016+)
• Uses COM interop — does NOT work on macOS or Linux
• Every command below invokes excelcli directly, so it must resolve on PATH. Installing the excel-cli plugin does not put it there — the global shim is opt-in. Run com.github.copilot\bin\install-global.ps1 from the installed plugin folder once (it writes excelcli.cmd / excelcli.ps1 into ~\.copilot\bin and adds that to your user PATH), or install the runtime independently via the standalone release zip or dotnet tool install --global Sbroenne.ExcelMcp.CLI. If excelcli is not found, report that and stop — do not guess at a path.
• In an Agent Plugins host, the runtime is downloaded and cached under PLUGIN_DATA\runtime; release freshness is checked once per Copilot session. The optional global shim falls back to ~\.copilot\plugin-runtime\mcp-server-excel\excel-cli and checks for updates at most once every 24 hours.

Workflow Checklist

Step	Command	When
1. Session	session create/open	Always first
2. Sheets	sheet create/rename	If needed
3. Write data	See below	If writing values
4. Save & close	session close --save	Always last

10+ commands? Use excelcli -q batch --input commands.json — sends all commands in one process with automatic session management. See Rule 8.

Writing Data (Step 3):

• --values takes a JSON 2D array string: --values '[["Header1","Header2"],[1,2]]'
• Write one row at a time for reliability: --range A1:B1 --values '[["Name","Age"]]'
• Strings MUST be double-quoted in JSON: "text". Numbers are bare: 42
• Always wrap the entire JSON value in single quotes to protect special characters

CRITICAL RULES (MUST FOLLOW)

⚡ Building dashboards or bulk operations? Skip to Rule 8: Batch Mode — it eliminates per-command process overhead and auto-manages session IDs.