XLIDE MCP server

xlide-mcp

An MCP server for the inside of an Office file. Read, write, analyze and test the VBA in Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Access, and edit the document around it. Visual Basic 6 projects open the same way.

Reading and writing needs no Office installation and runs 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 works from a copied snippet with no idea what else is in the project, or asks the user to export the modules and paste them back afterwards. Both treat the Office file as opaque. The VBA project, the form designs and the M code are all readable and writable without opening the application at all.

This server makes that reachable, and bounds it. A write is refused if the module changed since it was read. An analysis error fails the change. A run happens in an application the server created and holds a deadline over. Anything that cannot be undone is the user's decision.

Implementations

Other languages go in sibling directories. Python is normative: it tracks the upstream libraries, and ports track it. See docs/porting.md.

Install and run

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

Or install nothing and let uv fetch it on first run. uv is one binary and installs its own Python, so a machine with neither can still run this:

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

The live extra is safe to ask for on every platform: what it pulls in is marked sys_platform == 'win32', so off Windows it resolves to nothing and the same configuration works everywhere. Drop the --from pair for the file layer alone. uvx takes the newest published version unless you pin it, as xlide-mcp@1.0.3.

There is a Dockerfile for the file layer, which is the part that needs no Office installation. Mount the folder holding the files at /workspace, because that is the root the container is bounded to:

docker build -t xlide-mcp .
docker run --rm -i -v "$PWD:/workspace" xlide-mcp

Shortened. The full README is on GitHub.