xlide-mcp

An MCP server for the code inside Office files. The VBA, the UserForms, the Power Query and the worksheet cells in Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Access documents, plus Visual Basic 6 projects, reachable by any agent that speaks the Model Context Protocol.

Reading and writing the file needs no Office installation and works on Windows, macOS and Linux. Running macros and tests needs Windows with the desktop application.

xlide_list_projects                -> Budget.xlsm
xlide_project_info   Budget.xlsm   -> 4 modules, 2 sheets, 1 query, not signed
xlide_read_module    Helpers       -> the source, and a content token
xlide_write_module   Helpers       -> guarded by that token
xlide_analyze        Budget.xlsm   -> 0 errors, 2 warnings
xlide_run_tests      Budget.xlsm   -> 12 passed

Why

An agent asked to fix a macro has had two bad options: work from a copied snippet with no idea what else is in the project, or ask the user to export the modules and paste them back afterwards. Both treat the Office file as opaque. It is not: the VBA project, the form designs and the M code are all readable and writable without opening the application at all.

Install

pip install xlide-mcp              # reads and writes files, any platform
pip install "xlide-mcp[live]"      # adds running macros and tests, Windows

Run

xlide-mcp --root /path/to/your/files

Point a client at it. For Claude Desktop, Claude Code, or any client that launches a server over stdio:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "xlide": {
      "command": "xlide-mcp",
      "args": ["--root", "/path/to/your/files"]
    }
  }
}

--root is the security boundary. Every path a tool accepts is resolved, symlinks included, and refused unless it lands inside a root.

--transport streamable-http --port 8765 serves HTTP instead of stdio. It binds to loopback unless told otherwise: this server reads and writes files, and a default that listened on every interface would hand that reach to the network.

Call xlide_doctor first from a new client. It reports the workspace roots, which layers are installed, which Office applications the machine has, and whether each has the Trust Center setting that module injection needs.

What it does

Files - no Office installation, any platform.

Execution - Windows with the desktop application.

xlide_run_macro, xlide_run_vba, xlide_run_tests, xlide_compile_check

Live editor - a running xlide_vbide session inside the Visual Basic Editor.

xlide_live_sessions, xlide_live_state, xlide_live_request, xlide_live_read_module

Formats

A recognized extension outside those sets is listed with the reason it cannot be opened, rather than left silently out of a listing.

The rules it works by

These are in the server's own instructions, so every agent that connects reads them whether or not the user configured anything.

• The VBA inside the file is the only source of truth for it. Exported .bas and .cls files are copies and go stale.
• A read returns a content token. Pass it back on the write, and the write is refused if anything changed the module in between.
• Analysis after every change, and an error is a build failure.
• Nothing opens, closes or touches an Office application the user is running. A run happens in an instance the server created and can therefore terminate.
• Anything hard to undo is the user's decision: deleting a module, overwriting cells that hold data, writing to a project that is signed or password-protected.
• A cell value read from the package is what Excel last calculated. A formula written there has no result until Excel next opens the workbook, and the result says so.

Built on

Working on it

This package is the reference implementation in a repository that will hold others. See AGENTS.md for how to change a tool, contract/ for the generated tool surface and conformance corpus every implementation is verified against, and docs/porting.md for building one in another language.

pip install -e ".[dev,live]"
python -m pytest                 # the file layer, no Office needed
python -m pytest -m live         # the rest, real Office, Windows only
python -m ruff check src tests tools

License

MIT.