excel

The Excel MCP Server provides a dedicated service for processing Excel files. It exposes a set of API tools to read worksheets, write data to sheets, analyze and export Excel structure, and manage a cached file content for performance. Typical use cases include listing sheet names, reading data from specific sheets, creating or updating Excel files with multiple sheets, and exporting a structured representation of a workbook for documentation or validation. The server leverages MCP (Model Context Protocol) to enable structured, tool-oriented interactions with clients, making it straightforward to compose complex workflows that involve Excel data transformations and analysis.

Prerequisites:

• Node.js (recommended LTS) installed on your machine
• Internet access to fetch the MCP server package

Installation steps (recommended via MCP config and npm registry):

1. Ensure you have a host script or MCP runtime capable of using the MCP config format provided below. If you are using Smithery or a similar launcher, you can install via:

npx -y @smithery/cli install @zhiwei5576/excel-mcp-server --client claude

2. If installing manually via MCP configuration, you can run the server with npx directly (Node.js runtime required):

npx --yes @zhiweixu/excel-mcp-server

3. Alternatively, configure the MCP server in your application configuration as follows (Node.js server):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "excel": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["--yes", "@zhiweixu/excel-mcp-server"],
      "env": {
        "LOG_PATH": "[set an accessible absolute path]",
        "CACHE_MAX_AGE": "1",
        "CACHE_CLEANUP_INTERVAL": "4",
        "LOG_RETENTION_DAYS": "7",
        "LOG_CLEANUP_INTERVAL": "24"
      }
    }
  }
}

Notes:

• LOG_PATH is optional. If not set, logs will be stored in the logs directory under the application root.
• Other environment variables are optional and have sensible defaults.

Tips and common considerations:

• LOG_PATH is optional; if omitted, logs default to the application's logs folder.
• CACHE_MAX_AGE and CACHE_CLEANUP_INTERVAL control in-memory and scheduled cache management for Excel contents to speed up repeated reads.
• LOG_RETENTION_DAYS and LOG_CLEANUP_INTERVAL help manage log storage and prevent disk bloat.
• Ensure you provide absolute paths for LOG_PATH when configuring in production environments to avoid permission or path resolution issues.
• The server depends on dependencies like @modelcontextprotocol/sdk and xlsx; ensure compatible versions if you pin transitive dependencies in your project.
• For Windows vs other platforms, the command invocation may differ (e.g., using cmd /c). The provided config uses a cross-platform npm invocation approach.