Excel MCP Server

Based on excel-mcp-server by haris-musa – all credit for the core implementation goes to the original author.

Setup

./start_server.sh

Creates a .venv, installs the package via pip install -e ., and starts the server on port 8002 via streamable HTTP.

Related MCP server: unifiles-mcp

Deployment to Docker host

./deploy_to_remote.sh user

Syncs the server via rsync to the Docker host and builds/starts the container via docker compose.

MCP Registration

# Docker / remote
claude mcp add --scope user --transport http excel http://<docker-host>:8002/mcp

# Local
claude mcp add --scope user --transport http excel http://127.0.0.1:8002/mcp

File Transfer

The server runs in Docker and cannot access local file paths (e.g. /Users/…). Files must be uploaded via HTTP before they can be used with MCP tools.

Files are stored in /app/excel_files inside the container (mapped to /mnt/dockershare/excel). All tools expect a relative filename (e.g. data.xlsx) — absolute paths and directory traversal are rejected.

# Upload (required before any tool that takes a filepath)
curl -s -H "X-API-Key: $MCP_API_KEY" -F "file=@data.xlsx" http://<docker-host>:8002/upload
# → returns JSON with "filename": "data.xlsx"

# Download
curl -H "X-API-Key: $MCP_API_KEY" http://<docker-host>:8002/download/data.xlsx -o data.xlsx

# List files
curl -H "X-API-Key: $MCP_API_KEY" http://<docker-host>:8002/files

# Delete single file
curl -X DELETE -H "X-API-Key: $MCP_API_KEY" http://<docker-host>:8002/files/data.xlsx

# Delete all files
curl -X DELETE -H "X-API-Key: $MCP_API_KEY" http://<docker-host>:8002/files

Workflow for agents

1. Upload the local file via curl -s -H "X-API-Key: $MCP_API_KEY" -F "file=@/path/to/file.xlsx" http://<docker-host>:8002/upload

2. Use the returned filename (e.g. "data.xlsx") as filepath with all Excel tools

3. Do NOT try to read or unzip XLSX files locally — always upload via curl first

API Key

Set MCP_API_KEY in the container environment to require X-API-Key on all /upload, /download, and /files requests. If unset, endpoints are unprotected.

See docker-compose.yml for the placeholder.

License

MIT