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name: excel-cli description: >- Discover and launch the Excel CLI for ordinary Excel workbook requests on Windows, including reads, writes, formulas, data refreshes, and workbook automation. Use the installed excel-cli plugin's npx launcher and native help to find commands; report presentation conventions are a separate optional skill. compatibility: Windows with desktop Excel, Node.js 18 or later, and the excel-cli plugin.

Excel CLI discovery

The plugin does not place excelcli on PATH. Its launcher runs npx -y @sbroenne/excelcli@latest; do not assume a standalone executable is installed or restore the retired GitHub-release downloader.

For the plugin-bundled copy of this skill, ..\..\bin\start-cli.ps1 relative to the directory containing this SKILL.md locates the plugin launcher. Replace <plugin-root> below with that plugin's actual installed directory:

& "<plugin-root>\bin\start-cli.ps1" --help
& "<plugin-root>\bin\start-cli.ps1" session --help

Use the same full launcher path for subsequent commands, especially quoted JSON arguments in Windows PowerShell. Discover exact command names, flags, defaults, and save/close behavior through native --help; do not invent syntax.

Inspect the existing workbook state relevant to the request. Preserve unrelated contents and save only the authorized result. If an operation fails, inspect its reported partial state rather than assuming rollback or automatically cleaning up. For JSON errors, read errorMessage as the single error-text field; use errorCategory when present to guide recovery. Load excel-cli-report-formatting only for requested report presentation, not ordinary Excel reads or targeted updates.