office

name

office

description

Work with non-PowerPoint Office/OOXML documents through the published unified office CLI: identify, inspect, query, validate, diagnose, preview, create, template, comment, batch-edit, dump/replay, or safely inspect raw parts in .docx and .xlsx files, including addressed run-level text edits that refuse rather than silently lose content. Use this for Word and Excel tasks instead of python-docx, openpyxl, ExcelJS, pandoc, or LibreOffice. Use the legacy format-specific CLIs only for the few workflows the umbrella command does not provide: direct CSV import/export, formula calculation, fine-grained XLSX formula linting and live batch-capability discovery, fine-grained XLSX rendering controls, and DOCX Markdown/style-map/image-extraction conversion.

Office documents through one CLI

Use the unified office command for every DOCX/XLSX workflow unless the legacy-only table below names the exact missing capability.

Nothing to install beyond moonx. Run from any directory:

moonx moonbitlang/office help all --json
moonx moonbitlang/office <command> <args...>

Arguments after moonbitlang/office are passed directly to the command; do not insert a -- separator.

The WebAssembly target is the default and is the right choice for untrusted documents. It cannot spawn programs or open network connections, and the CLI also applies bounded package, XML, scan, output, and mutation limits. It can still read or write the paths supplied to it and consume CPU within those limits. For trusted files, moonx --target native moonbitlang/office ... is a faster drop-in.

Pin a version when reproducibility matters: moonx moonbitlang/office@0.4.0 .... @latest refreshes the registry index before resolving.

The CLI describes itself — prefer that over prose

This file will drift; the binary will not. Three introspection commands are normative:

moonx moonbitlang/office help all --json        # every format, command, field, limit
moonx moonbitlang/office help schemas --json    # every consumed JSON contract
moonx moonbitlang/office help schema ID --json  # one contract, e.g. xlsx.batch/2

help all carries a crc32: fingerprint over the capability registry. When this document and the fingerprinted registry disagree, the registry wins.

Default workflow

1. Discover the surface with help all --json, and help schema ID before authoring any JSON input document.
2. Run identify, then outline --json, before choosing paths or edits.
3. Inspect only what you need with get, text, or query. Reuse the canonical paths the CLI returns; do not invent selectors.
4. For mutations, prefer a separate --out, run --dry-run where supported, and read the transaction preservation report.
5. Read the result back, then run validate and issues. For any XLSX containing formulas, also run the legacy xlsx lint fallback below and require finding_count == 0: newly authored formulas have no cached result, so issues and preview cannot evaluate them. Lint evaluates formula masters but not shared/array slave formulas — treat those slaves as an unresolved residual rather than claiming formula correctness.
6. Run the delivery gate in "Verify before you deliver" below before handing anything over. preview publishes the HTML, but nothing in this toolchain renders it to an image — see the ceiling statement in that section.

Every documented failure exits non-zero, but a successful diagnostic command can still report warnings or formula findings with exit code zero. Inspect the structured counts and records, not just the exit code.

Ordinary --json commands emit one office.output/1 success/failure envelope. dump --json is the deliberate exception: it emits the replayable office.dump/1 document directly.

Command map

Replace the office token below with the moonx moonbitlang/office launcher.

Goal	Command
Discover formats, commands, fields, limits	office help [all|FORMAT|COMMAND|FORMAT COMMAND] [--json|--jsonl]
Discover consumed JSON contracts	office help schemas [--json|--jsonl]; office help schema ID [--json|--jsonl]
Verify and identify a package	office identify FILE [--json]
Map document/workbook structure	office outline FILE [--max-elements N] [--max-output-chars N] [--json]
Resolve one canonical selector	office get FILE SELECTOR [limits] [--json]
Extract path-tagged paragraphs/cells	office text FILE [--under SELECTOR] [--offset N] [--limit N] [limits] [--json]
Search bounded literal predicates	office query FILE [CELL_SELECTOR] [--under SELECTOR] [DOCX predicates] [pagination/limits] [--json]
Locate literal text with editability judgments	office find FILE --text TEXT [--in PATH] [--limit N] [--context N] [--json]
Replace literal text transactionally	office replace FILE OUT.docx --text TEXT --with TEXT [--in PATH] [--nth K] [--expect N] [--allow-zero] [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json]
Apply direct character formatting	office format FILE OUT.docx (--text TEXT [--in PATH] [--nth K] | --range START:END --in P) [--bold on|off] [--italic on|off] [--underline on|off] [--color RRGGBB] [--expect N] [--allow-zero] [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json] (at least one property flag)
Insert one paragraph, minting its identity	office insert-paragraph FILE OUT.docx (--before P|--after P) --content JSON [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json]
Delete one direct body paragraph	office delete-paragraph FILE OUT.docx --at (p[N]|p[id="…"]) [--expect-text TEXT] [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json]
Run the exact mutation validation gate	office validate FILE [--json|--jsonl]
Report validation plus bounded actionable warnings	office issues FILE [--json|--jsonl]
Publish deterministic offline HTML	office preview FILE --output OUT.html [--overwrite] [--json|--jsonl]
Create a blank validated file	office create xlsx OUT.xlsx [--sheet NAME] [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json] or office create docx OUT.docx [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json]
Merge strict placeholders/row regions	office template FILE DATA.json --out OUT [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--allow-missing] [--json|--jsonl]
Replace literal text, set one addressed run's text, or accept/reject tracked changes, in an existing DOCX	office edit FILE SCRIPT.json --out OUT.docx [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--allow-unmatched] [--json|--jsonl]
Add/reply/resolve DOCX comments	office annotate FILE SCRIPT.json --out OUT.docx [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json|--jsonl]
Mutate an XLSX transactionally	office batch BOOK.xlsx SCRIPT.json [--out OUT.xlsx] [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json]
Author a fresh DOCX from ops	office batch --format docx OUT.docx SCRIPT.json [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json]
Produce a replayable semantic dump	office dump FILE --json or streaming --jsonl
Reconstruct replayable dump content	office replay DUMP.json --output OUT [--overwrite] [--json|--jsonl]
Inventory/read OOXML parts	office raw list FILE [--json]; office raw read FILE PART [--json] [--base64|--output FILE]
Replace one XML part	office raw replace FILE PART (--xml XML | --xml-file FILE) [--out FILE] [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json]
Edit inside one XML part	office raw edit FILE PART --path PATH --action ACTION [action arguments] [--namespace PREFIX=URI]... [--all] [--out FILE] [--dry-run] [--overwrite] [--json]

[limits] abbreviates --max-elements N --max-output-chars N. DOCX query predicates are --kind, --text, --id, repeatable --property NAME=VALUE, and --ignore-case. XLSX query uses a quoted cell selector such as 'cell[type=number][value>0]'.

Canonical selectors

Selectors are format-rooted:

/docx/body/p[1]
/docx/body/tbl[1]/tr[1]/tc[2]/p[1]
/docx/comments/comment[id="7"]
/xlsx/workbook
/xlsx/sheet[name="Data"]
/xlsx/sheet[name="Data"]/cell[A1]
/xlsx/sheet[name="Data"]/range[A1:C12]

Ordinal paths are snapshot-relative. Re-run outline or text after a mutation before reusing them.

The XLSX payload shape follows the selector: a cell[A1] selector returns a single data.cell object, while a range[A1:C12] selector returns a data.cells array. Do not assume data.cells is always present.

Mutation contracts

• create is create-new by default; --overwrite explicitly replaces an existing destination. --dry-run validates without publishing.
• XLSX batch consumes xlsx.batch/2; the historical xlsx.batch/1 remains accepted with its exact v1 registry subset. With no --out it rewrites the input after all operations pass; prefer --out when preserving the source matters.
• DOCX batch --format docx consumes docx.batch/2 (and accepts docx.batch/1) and only authors a fresh destination. It does not edit an existing DOCX and does not accept --out.
• template never modifies its template. It substitutes non-executable {{key}} placeholders from flat scalar data and optional marked-row regions into a separate output.
• edit is the literal find & replace surface for an existing DOCX. It consumes docx.edit/1 ({"op": "replace_text", "params": {"find", "replace", "occurrence"}}) and publishes a separate output; the input is never touched. find is literal, never a regular expression, and matches across run boundaries. Omitting occurrence replaces every occurrence in document order; occurrence: N replaces only the Nth. Every op is matched against the original snapshot, so two ops whose matches overlap refuse (office.edit.overlapping_matches). A match the byte-span rewriter cannot own — mixed run content, a hyperlink boundary, or a footnote/endnote/comment story — refuses with office.edit.unsupported_context rather than being silently skipped, and an op that finds nothing refuses with office.edit.unmatched_find unless --allow-unmatched is passed.
• edit also RESOLVES tracked changes, through the same docx.edit/1 script: accept_revision and reject_revision with {"id"}, {"author"}, {"type": "ins"|"del"}, or {"all": true}. Spelled selector fields are conjunctive; id is the stable w:id handle outline reports, and ordinal position is never a selector. Accepting an insertion (or rejecting a deletion) unwraps the element and keeps its runs; rejecting an insertion (or accepting a deletion) removes the element and its content. One script is entirely replace_text or entirely revision ops — mixing them is rejected.
• edit also has an ADDRESSED text surface, set_run_text, under "schema": "docx.edit/2". Use it when you know which run to change rather than which text to find: {"op": "set_run_text", "params": {"at", "expect", "text"}}. at names ONE run — the office query path (/docx/body/p[3]/r[2]) or its body-relative form (p[3]/r[2]). expect must equal that run's entire current text, not a substring; a stale expectation refuses rather than editing the wrong run, because addresses are snapshot-relative and a document you read earlier may have moved. text replaces the run's whole text. Setting a run to its own text validates and changes nothing. A script is entirely set_run_text or entirely another family — never mixed. Prefer this over replace_text when the same literal occurs more than once, or when the text you want to change is short and ambiguous.
• Addressed edits refuse on content whose edit would not survive. This is the surface's main safety property and the most common surprise. A refusal here is not a defect to retry around — it means the write would have been lost, misattributed, or contradicted, and nothing downstream could have told you. set_run_text refuses a run that:
  • holds a field's cached result (a PAGE, DATE, TOC, REF or MERGEFIELD answer). Word recomputes it and discards your text. Edit what the field asks, or flatten the field, rather than its answer.
  • sits in a tracked insertion (w:ins). Writing there makes the document record that the insertion's named author wrote your words. Resolve the revision first with accept_revision, then edit the resulting plain text.
  • sits in a content control (w:sdt). A data-bound one is repopulated from its XML part on open. Change the bound data instead. Plain-text controls refuse too — the reader cannot yet tell them apart, and refusing the safe case is the deliberate side to err on.
  • sits in textbox content or a markup-compatibility fallback, where the same text is commonly stored twice and editing one copy leaves the other disagreeing.
  • owns suppressed content the reader could not model — a picture, an unmappable symbol, an unrecognised element — because replacing the run would leave content beside your text that you never saw.
  • sits in a logical paragraph joined from several physical ones (a deleted paragraph mark joins them), where one address does not name one place in the file.
  • spans a hyperlink boundary, where the rewrite would silently grow or shrink what is linked. Each refusal names the construct it found. Read the message: it tells you which of the above you hit, and therefore what to do instead.
• annotate is the preservation-safe existing-DOCX mutation surface. It consumes docx.annotation-batch/1 with comment_add, comment_reply, comment_resolve, and comment_unresolve ops and publishes a separate output. Its ops carry their fields directly, not under a params object — unlike xlsx.batch and docx.batch. comment_add takes anchor: {"at": "/docx/body/p[1]"}, author, and body as an array of strings, plus an optional label that later ops reference via {"label": ...}. Passing params fails with office.annotate.invalid_script. Run office help schema docx.annotation-batch/1 --json and read its examples before authoring.
• raw replace and raw edit are expert fallbacks. Use --dry-run and a separate --out; semantic commands are safer whenever they can express the task.
• A preservation report is authoritative. Do not infer preservation from the requested operations.
• dump --json is the form accepted by replay. dump --jsonl is a streaming inspection form with a terminal digest, not replay input.
• preview --overwrite and replay --overwrite remove the old destination before staging the replacement; a later write failure can leave it absent. Use a fresh destination, or make and verify a backup before explicit replacement. They do not share the atomic-overwrite guarantee of the transaction-backed mutation commands.

Run office help schema ID --json before authoring any consumed JSON document. It is normative for xlsx.batch/2, docx.batch/2, docx.edit/1, docx.edit/2, office.template.data/1, and docx.annotation-batch/1.

Shapes that are easy to get wrong

These four cost a failed run each if you guess. All are visible in help schema, but guessing is the natural failure.

1. A table cell is an object, not a string. rows is an array of arrays of cell objects:

{"op": "table", "params": {"header_rows": 1, "rows": [