Skip to content
excelente Docs

Documentation›Core concepts

Approvals and undo

Every change to your workbook stops for your approval, and every approved change can be reverted.

Excelente has exactly two permission levels. Read tools run silently. Write tools stop and ask.

Why only two levels#

Other agent harnesses use a gradient, from safe reads up to a "dangerous, are you sure" tier. Excel does not need one. Every workbook mutation Excelente can make goes onto an undo stack with the same recovery path, so there is no category of write that deserves a scarier prompt than the others.

Each tool declares its level in its definition. There is no tool that quietly skips the gate.

Write tools, which prompt Read tools, which run silently
write_range inspect_workbook, get_selection, find_cells
format_range trace_dependencies, screenshot
create_sheet submit_plan, update_plan_step, enter_plan_mode, todo_write
run_excel_script find_skill, load_skill, read_skill_resource, propose_skill
write_workbook_memory, write_workbook_settings read_workbook_memory, read_workbook_settings
undo spawn_subagent, ask_user_question

Connector tools are classified from what the MCP server declares. A tool that says it is read-only and not destructive gets Read. Everything else gets Write and routes through the approval card. See Connectors overview.

The approval card#

When a write is proposed, the run stops and a card appears:

write_range wants to modify the workbook. Marigold Flats!B4:G28 — 150 cells

Show full input expands the exact JSON, including every formula. Read it when the write touches something you care about.

Three buttons:

Button Effect
Approve Runs this call
Deny Refuses it. The agent is told it got nothing and adapts
Approve all Stops asking for the remainder of this conversation

Focus lands on the card itself rather than on a button, so a stray Enter cannot approve a write you have not read.

Approve all#

Once you trust what a build is doing, Approve all removes the friction. A ten-sheet model otherwise produces a lot of prompts, because tables are written ten rows at a time.

It is deliberately narrow:

  • It covers this conversation only, and resets when the conversation does.
  • A pill stays visible while it is on, with a Turn off button.
  • It cannot be set by anything except you, in the pane. A workbook cannot turn it on.

That last point matters. Per-workbook settings ride inside the .xlsx file, so a shared template could otherwise arrive with approvals silently disabled for everyone who opened it. The setting that reads those overrides drops autoApproveWrites on the floor.

Undo#

Every approved write goes on an undo stack that holds the prior contents of the range, formulas included. Reverting restores exactly what was there.

Three ways to trigger it:

  • The undo arrow in the composer toolbar.
  • The undo icon on a change card.
  • Typing /undo.

You get a notice either way:

↶ Reverted — Wrote values / formulas

ℹ Nothing to undo — No agent writes are on the undo stack for this conversation.

Why only the newest write reverts#

The undo icon appears on the most recent un-reverted change card. Earlier cards read superseded.

A write records the cells it replaced. If a later write touched some of the same cells, restoring the earlier snapshot would resurrect stale values on top of newer ones and leave your workbook in a state that never existed. Reverting newest-first is the only order that reconstructs real prior states, so to reach an older write, revert the ones after it first.

Change cards#

Completed writes collapse into a labelled card:

Tool Card
write_range Wrote values / formulas
format_range Applied formatting
write_workbook_memory Updated workbook memory
undo Restored prior contents

Hovering shows the range and dimensions. After reverting, the card is badged reverted. If the revert fails, it is badged failed with the error.

Excel's own undo#

Excel's Ctrl+Z does not reliably reverse an add-in write, because Office.js changes do not always enter the host undo stack. Use Excelente's undo for anything the agent did. Save before a large build if you want a file-level fallback.