Shortcut

AI-powered Excel, from your terminal.

A general-purpose AI agent with Excel superpowers. Designed for analysts, modelers, and operators.

$ shortcut

Modes

Action

/action · default

Reads and writes to your spreadsheet. Builds models, writes formulas, formats cells, creates charts, runs macros. Every change goes through the approval flow.

"Build a DCF model using the assumptions in column B"

Plan

/plan

Read-only. Explores your workbook, asks clarifying questions, produces a structured plan. Once you approve, it switches to Action to execute.

"This spreadsheet is broken, help me fix it"

Ask

/ask

Read-only analysis. Reviews, audits, explains your spreadsheet. Check formulas, trace dependencies, get a second opinion. Cannot modify anything.

"Audit this model for formula errors"

What It Can Do

Excel — Full COM Access Python inside Excel via a C add-in. VBA macros, Power Query, Power Pivot, Goal Seek, Solver, sensitivity tables, 73+ chart types, pivot tables, conditional formatting, cross-workbook references, and the full Python ecosystem. Heavily Parallelizable Run multiple Shortcut terminals working on the same or different workbooks simultaneously. Within a single session, the agent spawns parallel subagents — build the revenue model and cost model at the same time, extract 5 PDFs concurrently, cross-reference across workbooks. General Agent Full bash shell, local filesystem access, web search. Find and open files anywhere on your machine, run scripts, create PowerPoints, generate PDFs, send emails through Outlook or Gmail. Financial Data Providers Bloomberg, FactSet, Capital IQ, Refinitiv, Morningstar, PitchBook, Preqin, AlphaSense, Moody's, ICE, QuickBooks, Xero, and more. Native Excel formula syntax. Document Creation & Reading PDFs, PowerPoints, SEC filings from EDGAR. Extract tables from PDFs and images with programmatic tools + multimodal AI cross-validation. Session Management Every conversation saved. Continue with /resume, branch from any point with /tree, auto-compaction when context fills up. Claude Code & Codex Integration Use Shortcut as a plugin from Claude Code or OpenAI Codex. The coding agent handles code and files, Shortcut handles Excel. Data Connections Snowflake, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL, Salesforce, HubSpot, Airtable, Notion, Slack, Outlook, Gmail, Google Drive, Dropbox, Box. MCP Servers Connect external tools via the Model Context Protocol. GitHub, Slack, Gmail, Jira, and hundreds more. Ask the agent to set one up. Permissions Review runtime permissions, approved workspaces, approved external paths, and the explicit bypass mode. Review & Approval Every cell modification shown as a diff before it takes effect. Accept, Reject, or Accept All. Toggle auto-approve with Shift+Tab. Sandbox Isolated execution via WSL2. You specify read paths, write paths, and network access. Python in Excel is separately sandboxed.

How It Works

You ask

▸ Download Apple's latest 10-K from SEC EDGAR and build a 5-year DCF model

Shortcut researches and extracts

●bash

# Fetch AAPL filing index from SEC EDGAR
curl -H "User-Agent: ShortcutAgent/1.0" \
  "https://data.sec.gov/submissions/CIK0000320193.json"

✓ Found 10-K filed 2024-11-01

●document_reader×3 parallel

# 3 subagents extract different sections simultaneously
Reader 1: Income statement & revenue breakdown
Reader 2: Balance sheet & cash flow
Reader 3: MD&A assumptions & risk factors

✓ Extracted 42 tables across 287 pages

Shows the plan

☐ Write historical financials to Revenue & Costs sheets
☐ Build Assumptions sheet with growth rates, margins, WACC
☐ Create 5-year projection with linked formulas
☐ Build DCF sheet — unlevered FCF, terminal value, enterprise value
☐ Format with headers, borders, number formats

Executes — you approve each change

●excel_exec<DCF!A1:H30>

┌ Cell changes ───────────────
│ DCF!B3  "" → "Revenue"
│ DCF!C3  "" → "=Revenue!B2*(1+Assumptions!B3)"
│ DCF!B8  "" → "Unlevered FCF"
│ DCF!B12 "" → "Enterprise Value"
│ ...34 more changes
└────────────────────────────

Accept Reject

Try It

Run shortcut and type any of these:

▸ Open the Q3 forecast on my desktop. Pull the AAPL assumptions into a new sheet in the valuation model, build a 2-variable sensitivity table on WACC vs terminal growth rate, and turn on iterative calculation so the circular refs resolve.

▸ Find the latest investor update deck in my Downloads folder, extract the financial tables into Excel, cross-reference against the budget workbook on my OneDrive, and email the variance summary to Sarah through Outlook.

▸ Open both the revenue model and the cost model. Consolidate them into a new 3-statement model with linked balance sheet, income statement, and cash flow. Add a DCF tab with Bloomberg comps for the peer group.

Commands

Authentication
`/login`	Sign into your Shortcut account
`/logout`	Sign out
Modes
`/action`	Default — read and write to Excel
`/plan`	Explore and plan (read-only)
`/ask`	Analyze and explain (read-only)
Models & Settings
`/model`	Switch between available AI models
`/thinking`	Set thinking level: off, minimal, low, medium, high
`/settings`	Preferences — auto-approve, theme, privacy
`/permissions`	Manage runtime permissions, approved workspaces, and spreadsheet approval defaults
`/sandbox`	Configure sandbox — filesystem and network permissions
`Shift+Tab`	Toggle auto-approve edits
Skills & Data
`/download-skills`	Sync skills from Shortcut cloud
`/skills`	Show loaded skills
`/connect`	Configure database & API connections
Session
`/resume`	Continue a previous session
`/tree`	Navigate and branch session history
`/clear`	Start a fresh session
`/compact`	Summarize older context to free up space
`/export`	Export session to HTML
`/quit`	Exit Shortcut

Models

Switch with /model or Ctrl+L. No API keys needed — Shortcut routes through your Shortcut account.

Default model	Best for most tasks — building models, complex formatting, and multi-step workflows.
GPT 5.4	Strong at auditing, verification, and spreadsheet logic. Good second pair of eyes for numerical work.
Sonnet 4.6	Cheapest and fastest. Great for simple tasks — quick formatting, basic data entry, straightforward questions.

Extend Shortcut

Skills ▶

Skills are instruction packages that teach the agent specialized workflows. They're loaded on demand — the agent only reads a skill when your request matches it.

Built-in skills

Integrations	Formula syntax for Bloomberg, FactSet, Capital IQ, Refinitiv, Morningstar, PitchBook, and 15+ providers
External Services	Databases, SaaS APIs, Google Workspace, cloud drives
MCP	Install and configure MCP servers for GitHub, Slack, and more
Document Creation	PDFs (fpdf2, ReportLab, HTML-to-PDF) and PowerPoint presentations
SEC EDGAR	Research and download SEC filings for US public companies
Advanced COM API	Full Excel COM reference (~38,700 lines of type stubs)

Create your own

Tell Shortcut to create a skill for you. Say "help me create a skill for our quarterly reporting workflow" and it will walk you through the process — drafting, testing, and iterating until the skill works reliably. It even benchmarks "with skill" vs "without skill" so you can measure the improvement.

MCP Servers ▶

Connect external tools via the Model Context Protocol. MCP is an open standard supported by Claude Desktop, Cursor, and hundreds of tool servers. Any MCP server works with Shortcut out of the box.

Getting started

Ask the agent: "Connect me to GitHub via MCP". It will walk you through finding the server package, storing credentials with /connect, writing the config, and verifying the connection. Use /mcp to see connected servers and their tools.

Popular servers

GitHub — repos, issues, PRs, code search
Slack — messages, channels, users
Google Drive — files, folders, search
PostgreSQL — query databases directly
Filesystem — scoped read/write access to directories

Extensions ▶

Extensions add custom tools and automation to Shortcut. You don't write code — you tell Shortcut what you need and it builds the extension. If the agent needs a new capability for a task, it can create one on the fly.

Examples

Desktop notifications — get a native alert when the agent finishes a long-running task so you can step away and come back
Presets — named configurations for model, thinking level, and instructions. Switch between "planning" and "building" with one command
Git checkpoints — auto-stash at each turn so you can roll back to any point in the conversation
Permission gates — require confirmation before dangerous operations like deleting files or running unfamiliar commands
Protected paths — block writes to sensitive files (.env, credentials, production configs)

Security & Privacy

Local-only	Workbooks and files stay on your machine. Excel communication is localhost only. No data sent to external servers beyond what the AI model needs.
Token auth	A random 32-byte token is generated each time the add-in loads. Every request from the Shortcut agent to the Excel add-in must include it — other programs on your machine can't use ShortcutXL's connection to Excel.
Change approval	Every cell modification shown as a diff before it takes effect. Accept, Reject, or Accept All.
Credential security	Connection credentials stored in your OS keychain (macOS Keychain, Windows Credential Manager). Never exposed to the model.
Code sandbox	Shell commands can optionally run in an isolated Linux environment (WSL2). You specify which paths the agent can read, which it can write to, and whether it has network access — none, per-domain approval, or full. Python inside Excel runs in a separate sandbox with no imports, no network, no file writes, and a 30-second timeout.
Privacy controls	Opt out of conversation uploads via `/settings` for complete privacy.

FAQ

Do I need API keys?▶

No. Shortcut routes through your Shortcut account. Just /login and go.

Can I use it without Excel?▶

Yes. Shortcut works as a general-purpose agent with file, shell, and web tools. The excel_exec tool requires ShortcutXL loaded in Excel on Windows.

Can I run multiple instances?▶

Yes. Run multiple Shortcut terminals working on the same workbook or different workbooks simultaneously. Have one agent build a model while another pulls data.

How do I connect to a database?▶

Run /connect and follow the prompts. Supports Snowflake, PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL. Credentials stored in your OS keychain, injected only into approved subprocesses with your explicit approval each time.

How do I update?▶

npm update -g shortcutxl. The sandbox auto-updates with the agent. ShortcutXL tells you when a new version is available.