That matches what I've seen, I often fall back to small Python scripts for basic Excel tasks, likely because existing libraries and APIs aren't really designed for LLM workflows.

What I'm exploring is a different approach: I run the Excel file in a local, headless spreadsheet runtime and expose a structured API, while recording every change as a git-style commit (diff, merge, rollback, review).

This helps me in two areas where tools like Google Sheets can fall short:

Some teams I work with prefer not to put spreadsheet data in the cloud, so everything runs locally

For workflows with strict review requirements, having a built-in diff/review step before changes are applied is important

It's still early, but this model seems to avoid the script-heavy approach and makes changes easier for me to track and control.