read_excelLABSCO SUMMARY
One tool, built around the problem that spreadsheets are too big to hand a model whole.
read_excel does the thing you would otherwise write yourself: it splits the sheet, tells you where the chunk ends, and gives you the starting row for the next one, so the model can walk a long file instead of choking on it. It reads only — there is no write path, and formulas, cell styles and merged ranges are SheetJS features the repository documents as extensions rather than things the tool returns today.
What it is
A TypeScript server built on SheetJS that exposes one tool, read_excel, which opens a workbook from disk and returns rows as JSON with pagination built in.
What you get
- Any .xlsx or .xls workbook on disk read into structured rows
- Automatic chunking for large sheets, with a default chunk size of 100KB
- A specific sheet by name, or the first sheet when you do not name one
- Row pagination through startRow and maxRows, with the next chunk's starting row returned so reading can continue
- Sheet metadata alongside the data — total sheets, total rows, total columns, and the column names in the chunk
- Dates parsed rather than handed back as serial numbers
Requirements
Nothing to authorize — no account, no key. Published as @archimdescrypto/excel-reader-mcp, which installs an excel-reader command for your client to launch; a Smithery install path for Claude Desktop is documented as well.
Setup effort
Build from source — git clone https://github.com/ArchimedesCrypto/excel-reader-mcp.git
USE CASES
01
Getting a look at a workbook someone just sent you
Read the first sheet and see the column names, row count and sheet count before deciding which part matters.
02
Pulling numbers out of a file too big to paste
The sheet comes back in chunks with the next starting row attached, so a long export can be read through in sequence.
03
Reading one tab out of a many-tab workbook
Name the sheet and skip the rest — useful when the file has a summary tab buried behind a dozen raw data tabs.
04
Sampling a specific row range
Set startRow and maxRows to read the block you care about instead of everything above it.
1 tool
Listed in project docs. Your client may show a different list.
BEFORE YOU INSTALL
What to know first
Tools you get
1 tool named in the project's documentation.
Where it runs
The documented client runs the server on your machine.
INSTALLATION
Connect your client
You clone and build this one yourself.
Server setup
TERMINAL
git clone https://github.com/ArchimedesCrypto/excel-reader-mcp.git
cd excel-reader-mcp
npm install
npm run buildMCP Clients
Claude Desktop
CLAUDE DESKTOP · JSON
{
"mcpServers": {
"excel-reader": {
"command": "node",
"args": [
"<YOUR_EXCEL_READER_MCP_CLONE>/build/index.js"
]
}
}
}
