🔌 KitchenSink4XL Community Edition

Landing page · llms.txt (machine-readable capability manifest for agents and LLM crawlers)

Read and edit Excel workbooks with your AI assistant, and know which numbers are calculated, cached or missing.

Read and edit real Excel workbooks from Claude Code, Codex CLI, Copilot CLI or any other MCP client that runs local tools. KitchenSink4XL connects your assistant to .xlsx files with tools for formulas, tables and data checks, and it tells you whether a value was calculated, cached or never computed before you put it in a report. Files are processed on your computer; the only thing that leaves it is what your AI app sends to its own provider. The Community edition is free under the AGPL. The Business edition adds a Windows installer, a signed update channel, a license your company can approve and support.

Works on: Windows, macOS and Linux for the file tools. Recalculation, pivots and the other Excel-powered features need Windows with Microsoft Excel installed.

Install

Pick the route for your AI app. The commands go in PowerShell on Windows or a terminal on macOS and Linux, not into an AI chat. The package routes need Python 3.12 or newer.

Claude Desktop

Install uv, then quit and reopen Claude Desktop. Download the .mcpb file from KitchenSink4XL releases. In Claude Desktop open Settings, then Extensions, then Advanced settings, then Install extension, and choose the file. The bundle fetches the Python package the first time it starts, so the first launch needs a network connection. Restart your session and check that the tools show as connected.

Claude Code or Codex CLI

Install uv, then run the line for your app and restart your session:

claude mcp add xl -s user -- uvx kitchensink4xl

codex mcp add xl -- uvx kitchensink4xl

Any other local MCP client

Use uvx as the command and kitchensink4xl as its argument, or install the package and use kitchensink4xl as the server command:

pip install kitchensink4xl

Then follow your client's guide for adding a local MCP server. Installing the package on its own does not connect it to an AI app.

Business edition

Compare the editions on the pricing page. Already purchased? Your Windows installer and download link are in your license portal.

What it can do

69 tools with every pack enabled, including the pack controls. The default lite surface has 40.

• See whether a value was calculated, cached or missing before you use it.
• Read a range or summarize a large table without pulling every row.
• Write formulas, values and number formats into an existing workbook.
• Add or remove rows and columns while supported references update.
• Sort, filter and format tables for a client or a colleague.
• Import and export CSV and JSON.
• Check a workbook for structural problems before sharing it.
• Use installed Excel on Windows for recalculation, pivots and PDF export.

What is available depends on the packs you enable and the applications installed. The full tool reference is below.

Business edition

Need a license your company can approve and a setup someone supports? The Business edition pairs these tools with a Windows installer, a signed update channel and support under the Business terms. Update checks tell you when a covered release is available; nothing installs on its own. Compare the options on the pricing page. The Community edition stays free under the AGPL, including business use that meets its terms.

Privacy Policy

The tools run on your computer, and KitchenSink4AI receives no documents and no usage data from them. Your AI app may send prompts, file contents and tool results to its own provider under that app's settings and terms. Installing downloads packages, and the Community version check contacts PyPI unless you disable it; those requests carry connection details such as your network address and never your documents. Cloud folders and backups follow their own settings. The Privacy Policy covers the product, purchases and support records.

Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft Corporation. Microsoft and Excel are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies.

The number that looks right and isn't

Here is the dirty secret of every tool that reads Excel files: a spreadsheet remembers its answers, not its thinking. When something changes upstream, the old answers just sit there, looking exactly like real numbers. Most AI tools will read one anyway and confidently report it, and you will make a decision based on it. This server refuses to bluff. Every number it hands your AI comes with the truth attached: freshly calculated, remembered from the last save, or missing, with the affected cells named. And when it really matters, it asks Excel itself to recalculate and prove it.

What happens to column F when you insert column D

Insert one column in a real workbook and you find out how much of a spreadsheet lives to the right of where you clicked. Formulas, totals, charts, that table on sheet three that quietly feeds the summary: all of them have opinions about where their cells just went.

Most tools do the cheap version: move the cells, save the file, hope. The damage never shows up when the edit runs. It shows up three days later, in a meeting, in the one total that quietly stopped including its last row.

This server moves everything that should move, and checks the result against what Excel itself would have done. When an edit cannot be done safely, it says no out loud instead of guessing quietly. A refusal costs you a minute. A quiet guess costs you the deal.

Against the rest of the aisle

Feature grids flatter everybody. Here it is instead as the requests an agent actually gets: