Excel CLI Skill

Name: Excel CLI: AI Agent Skill
Rating: 9 (1 reviews)
Author: sbroenne

Agent Skill for AI coding assistants using the Excel CLI tool (excelcli).

Best For

Coding agents (GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf, Codex, Gemini CLI, and 38+ more)
Token-efficient workflows (no large tool schemas)
Discoverable via excelcli --help
Scriptable in PowerShell pipelines, CI/CD, batch processing
Quiet mode (-q) outputs clean JSON only

Why CLI Over MCP?

Modern coding agents increasingly favor CLI-based workflows:

# Token-efficient: No schema overhead
excelcli -q session open C:\Data\Report.xlsx
excelcli -q range set-values --session 1 --sheet Sheet1 --range A1 --values-json '[["Hello"]]'
excelcli -q session close --session 1 --save

Installation

GitHub Copilot

The Excel MCP Server VS Code extension installs this skill automatically to ~/.copilot/skills/excel-cli/.

Enable skills in VS Code settings:

{
  "chat.useAgentSkills": true
}

Other Platforms

Extract to your AI assistant's skills directory:

Platform	Location
Claude Code	`.claude/skills/excel-cli/`
Cursor	`.cursor/skills/excel-cli/`
Windsurf	`.windsurf/skills/excel-cli/`
Gemini CLI	`.gemini/skills/excel-cli/`
Codex	`.codex/skills/excel-cli/`
And 36+ more	Via `npx skills`
Goose	`.goose/skills/excel-cli/`

Or use npx:

# Interactive - prompts to select excel-cli, excel-mcp, or both
npx skills add sbroenne/mcp-server-excel

# Or specify directly
npx skills add sbroenne/mcp-server-excel --skill excel-cli

excel-cli/
├── SKILL.md           # Main skill definition with CLI command guidance
├── README.md          # This file
└── references/        # Detailed domain-specific guidance
    ├── behavioral-rules.md
    ├── anti-patterns.md
    ├── workflows.md
    ├── range.md
    ├── table.md
    ├── worksheet.md
    ├── chart.md
    ├── slicer.md
    ├── powerquery.md
    ├── datamodel.md
    └── conditionalformat.md

CLI Installation

Install the CLI tool via NuGet:

dotnet tool install --global Sbroenne.ExcelMcp.CLI

Verify installation:

excelcli --version
excelcli --help

Excel MCP Skill - For conversational AI (Claude Desktop, VS Code Chat)
Documentation
GitHub Repository

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Excel CLI?

Excel CLI is a free, open-source AI agent skill. >

How do I install Excel CLI?

Install Excel CLI with a single command:

npx mdskills install sbroenne/excel-cli

This downloads the skill files into your project and your AI agent picks them up automatically.

What platforms support Excel CLI?

Excel CLI works with Claude Code, Claude Desktop, Cursor, Vscode Copilot, Windsurf, Continue Dev, Gemini Cli, Amp, Roo Code, Goose. Skills use the open SKILL.md format which is compatible with any AI coding agent that reads markdown instructions.

Excel CLI