Cross-platform AI assistant guidance for Excel MCP Server, following the emerging Agent Skills specification.

Two Skills for Different Use Cases

Skill	Target	Best For
excel-cli	CLI Tool	Coding agents (Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf) - token-efficient, `--help` discoverable
excel-mcp	MCP Server	Conversational AI (Claude Desktop, VS Code Chat) - rich tool schemas, exploratory workflows

When to use CLI (Recommended for Coding Agents)

Modern coding agents increasingly favor CLI-based workflows over MCP because:

Token-efficient: No large tool schemas loaded into context
Discoverable: Agents can run excelcli --help to learn commands
Scriptable: Works in PowerShell pipelines, CI/CD, batch processing
Quiet mode: -q flag outputs clean JSON only

## Coding agent workflow
excelcli -q session open C:\Data\Report.xlsx
excelcli -q range set-values --session 1 --sheet Sheet1 --range A1 --values-json '[["Hello"]]'
excelcli -q session close --session 1 --save

When to use MCP Server

MCP remains relevant for:

Exploratory automation with iterative reasoning
Self-healing workflows needing rich introspection
Long-running autonomous tasks with continuous context
Conversational interfaces (Claude Desktop, VS Code Chat)

What Are Agent Skills?

Agent Skills are reusable instruction sets that extend AI coding assistants with domain-specific knowledge. They enable consistent, reliable behavior when working with specific tools like Excel MCP Server.

Supported Platforms

Platform	Install Location	Auto-Install
GitHub Copilot	`~/.copilot/skills/excel-mcp/`	Via VS Code extension
Claude Code	`.claude/skills/excel-mcp/`	Manual or npx
Cursor	`.cursor/skills/excel-mcp/`	Manual or npx
Windsurf	`.windsurf/skills/excel-mcp/`	Manual or npx
Gemini CLI	`.gemini/skills/excel-mcp/`	Manual or npx
Goose	`.goose/skills/excel-mcp/`	Manual or npx

Installation Methods

Method 1: VS Code Extension (Copilot)

Install the Excel MCP Server extension - skills are installed automatically to ~/.copilot/skills/.

Enable skills in VS Code settings:

{
  "chat.useAgentSkills": true
}

Method 2: npx skills add (Cross-Platform)

The repository contains TWO skills. The CLI will prompt you to select which one(s) to install:

## Interactive install - prompts to select excel-cli, excel-mcp, or both
npx skills add sbroenne/mcp-server-excel

## Install specific skill directly
npx skills add sbroenne/mcp-server-excel --skill excel-cli   # Coding agents
npx skills add sbroenne/mcp-server-excel --skill excel-mcp   # Conversational AI

## Install both skills
npx skills add sbroenne/mcp-server-excel --skill '*'

## Install for specific agent
npx skills add sbroenne/mcp-server-excel --skill excel-cli -a cursor
npx skills add sbroenne/mcp-server-excel --skill excel-mcp -a claude-code

## Install globally (user-wide)
npx skills add sbroenne/mcp-server-excel --skill excel-cli --global

Method 3: GitHub Release Download

Download excel-skills-vX.X.X.zip from GitHub Releases.

The package contains both skills:

skills/excel-cli/ - for coding agents (Copilot, Cursor, Windsurf)
skills/excel-mcp/ - for conversational AI (Claude Desktop, VS Code Chat)

Extract the skill(s) you need to your AI assistant’s skills directory:

Copilot: ~/.copilot/skills/excel-cli/ or ~/.copilot/skills/excel-mcp/
Claude Code: .claude/skills/excel-cli/ or .claude/skills/excel-mcp/
Cursor: .cursor/skills/excel-mcp/ or .cursor/skills/excel-cli/
Windsurf: .windsurf/skills/excel-mcp/ or .windsurf/skills/excel-cli/

Method 4: Git Clone (Development)

## Clone and copy
git clone https://github.com/sbroenne/mcp-server-excel.git
cp -r mcp-server-excel/skills/excel-mcp ~/.copilot/skills/

Directory Structure

skills/
├── README.md                    # This file
├── shared/                      # Shared behavioral guidance (source of truth)
│   ├── behavioral-rules.md      # Core execution rules
│   ├── anti-patterns.md         # Common mistakes to avoid
│   ├── workflows.md             # Production workflow patterns
│   ├── excel_powerquery.md      # Power Query specifics
│   ├── excel_datamodel.md       # Data Model/DAX specifics
│   ├── excel_table.md           # Table operations
│   ├── excel_range.md           # Range operations
│   ├── excel_worksheet.md       # Worksheet operations
│   ├── excel_chart.md           # Chart operations
│   ├── excel_slicer.md          # Slicer operations
│   └── excel_conditionalformat.md # Conditional formatting
├── excel-mcp/                   # MCP Server skill package
│   ├── SKILL.md                 # Primary skill definition (MCP tools)
│   ├── README.md                # MCP skill installation guide
│   ├── VERSION                  # Version tracking
│   └── references/              # MCP-specific + shared (copied during build)
│       ├── claude-desktop.md    # Claude Desktop setup (MCP-specific)
│       └── (shared files)       # Copied from shared/ by build script
├── excel-cli/                   # CLI skill package
│   ├── SKILL.md                 # CLI commands documentation
│   ├── README.md                # CLI skill installation guide
│   └── references/              # CLI-specific + shared (copied during build)
│       ├── README.md            # Explains build process
│       └── (shared files)       # Copied from shared/ by build script
├── CLAUDE.md                    # Claude Code project instructions
└── .cursorrules                 # Cursor-specific rules

Note: Shared behavioral guidance lives in shared/ and is copied to each skill’s references/ folder during the build. Run dotnet build -c Release to generate SKILL.md and copy references.

Platform-Specific Files

For Claude Code Users

Copy CLAUDE.md to your project root:

cp skills/CLAUDE.md /path/to/your/project/CLAUDE.md

Or reference from .claude/skills/:

mkdir -p .claude/skills
cp -r skills/excel-mcp .claude/skills/

For Cursor Users

Copy .cursorrules to your project root:

cp skills/.cursorrules /path/to/your/project/.cursorrules

Building the Skills Package

Skill files are generated automatically during Release builds:

## Build solution - generates SKILL.md and copies references
dotnet build -c Release

## Output (in skills/ folder):
##   excel-mcp/SKILL.md        - Generated MCP skill documentation
##   excel-mcp/references/     - Copied shared reference files
##   excel-cli/SKILL.md        - Generated CLI skill documentation  
##   excel-cli/references/     - Copied shared reference files

For release artifacts (ZIP package), the GitHub Actions workflow handles packaging.

Version Compatibility

Skills Version	MCP Server Version	Minimum Excel
1.2.0+	1.2.0+	Excel 2016+
1.1.x	1.1.x	Excel 2016+

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines on improving the skills.

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