Excel MCP Server - AI-Powered Excel Automation
Control Microsoft Excel with AI through GitHub Copilot - just ask in natural language!
MCP Server for Excel enables AI assistants (GitHub Copilot, Claude, ChatGPT) to automate Excel through natural language commands. Automate Power Query, DAX measures, VBA macros, PivotTables, Charts, formatting, and data transformations - no Excel programming knowledge required.
🛡️ 100% Safe - Uses Excel's Native COM API - Zero risk of file corruption. Unlike third-party libraries that manipulate .xlsx files directly, this project uses Excel's official API ensuring complete safety and compatibility.
💡 Interactive Development - See results instantly in Excel. Create a query, run it, inspect the output, refine and repeat. Excel becomes your AI-powered workspace for rapid development and testing.
🧪 LLM-Tested Quality - Tool behavior validated with real AI agents using agent-benchmark. We test that LLMs correctly understand and use our tools.
Features
The Excel MCP Server provides 22 specialized tools with 211 operations for comprehensive Excel automation:
- 🔄 Power Query (1 tool, 11 ops) - Atomic workflows, M code management, load destinations
- 📊 Data Model/DAX (2 tools, 18 ops) - Measures, relationships, model structure
- 🎨 Excel Tables (2 tools, 27 ops) - Lifecycle, filtering, sorting, structured references
- 📈 PivotTables (3 tools, 30 ops) - Creation, fields, aggregations, calculated members/fields
- 📉 Charts (2 tools, 26 ops) - Create, configure, series, formatting, data labels, trendlines
- 📝 VBA (1 tool, 6 ops) - Modules, execution, version control
- 📋 Ranges (4 tools, 42 ops) - Values, formulas, formatting, validation, protection
- 📄 Worksheets (2 tools, 16 ops) - Lifecycle, colors, visibility, cross-workbook moves
- 🔌 Connections (1 tool, 9 ops) - OLEDB/ODBC management and refresh
- 🏷️ Named Ranges (1 tool, 6 ops) - Parameters and configuration
- 📁 Files (1 tool, 6 ops) - Session management and workbook creation
- �️ Slicers (1 tool, 8 ops) - Interactive filtering for PivotTables and Tables
- �🎨 Conditional Formatting (1 tool, 2 ops) - Rules and clearing
📚 Complete Feature Reference →
Agent Skills (Bundled)
This extension includes Agent Skills following the agentskills.io specification - providing domain-specific guidance for AI assistants. The skills enable GitHub Copilot to effectively understand Excel MCP Server capabilities, workflows, and best practices.
📚 View Agent Skills →
VS Code setup: Enable the preview setting chat.useAgentSkills to allow Copilot to load skills. This extension installs the skill to ~/.copilot/skills/excel-mcp for discovery.
💬 Example Prompts
Create & Populate Data:
- "Create a new Excel file called SalesTracker.xlsx with a table for Date, Product, Quantity, Unit Price, and Total"
- "Put this data in A1:C4 - Name, Age, City / Alice, 30, Seattle / Bob, 25, Portland"
- "Add sample data and a formula column for Quantity times Unit Price"
Analysis & Visualization:
- "Create a PivotTable from this data showing total sales by Product, then add a bar chart"
- "Import products.csv with Power Query, load to Data Model, create a measure for Total Revenue"
- "Create a slicer for the Region field so I can filter the PivotTable interactively"
Formatting & Automation:
- "Format the Price column as currency and highlight values over $500 in green"
- "Export all Power Query M code to files for version control"
- "Show me Excel while you work" - watch changes in real-time
Quick Start
- Install this extension (you just did!)
- Ask Copilot in the chat panel:
- "List all Power Query queries in workbook.xlsx"
- "Create a DAX measure for year-over-year revenue growth"
- "Export all Powere Queires and VBA modules to .vba files for version control"
That's it! The extension automatically installs .NET 10 runtime and includes a bundled MCP server.
➡️ Learn more and see examples
Requirements
- Windows OS - Excel COM automation requires Windows
- Microsoft Excel 2016+ - Must be installed on your system
- .NET 10 Runtime - Automatically installed by the extension
Potential Issues
"Excel is not installed" error:
- Ensure Microsoft Excel 2016+ is installed on your Windows machine
- Try opening Excel manually to verify it works
"VBA access denied" error:
- VBA operations require one-time manual setup in Excel
- Go to: File → Options → Trust Center → Trust Center Settings → Macro Settings
- Check "Trust access to the VBA project object model"
Copilot doesn't see Excel tools:
Documentation & Support
License & Privacy
MIT License - see LICENSE
Privacy Policy - see PRIVACY.md
Built with GitHub Copilot | Powered by Model Context Protocol
