mcp-ooxml-ledger

An MCP server that edits Office documents and refuses to write one where an edit went unrecorded.

Before sealing a session it replays every recorded operation against the document's baseline and compares the result to what is actually on disk. A change no operation explains means the commit is refused. Of ~18 competing MCP document-editing projects, none gates the write on that check. The refusal is the product.

Setup

uv add mcp-ooxml-ledger

Add to .mcp.json (project) or claude_desktop_config.json (desktop — use an absolute path, ${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR} isn't expanded there):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "ooxml-ledger": {
      "command": "uv",
      "args": ["run", "--project", "${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}", "ooxml-ledger-mcp"],
      "env": { "OOXML_LEDGER_ROOTS": "${CLAUDE_PROJECT_DIR}" }
    }
  }
}

Needs uv on PATH; nothing else installed globally. Invoking the ooxml-ledger-mcp script directly gives ENOENT — it lives in the project venv, not your shell's PATH.

OOXML_LEDGER_ROOTS is the security boundary. An os.pathsep-separated list; every path any tool receives is resolved inside it and refused outside. Unset, it defaults to the server's working directory — set it deliberately, since export_receipt writes anywhere inside a root.

Tools

Typical loop:

open_document → find_text → preview_edits → apply_edits → commit_document → verify

sid = open_document(document="report.docx")["session_id"]
find_text(sid, query="Q3 revenue")                     # → part, para_id, para_hash
preview_edits(sid, edits=[...], author="alice")        # → what WOULD happen; writes nothing
apply_edits(sid, edits=[...], author="alice", mode="tracked")
commit_document(sid)                                   # → refuses if anything is unaccounted for
verify("report.docx")                                  # → verified | unknown | failed

preview_edits runs the same engine function as apply_edits against a throwaway copy, so the two cannot disagree. Batches are all-or-nothing: a failing edit leaves the document byte-identical.

mode="tracked" emits Word revision marks a reviewer sees in the document. mode="direct" rewrites the text with none — still fully recorded, and the receipt discloses that a direct edit touched a revision-capable part, so it is never silently indistinguishable from an ordinary save.

Format matrix

Verification, digests, the gate and the receipt model are format-agnostic. Only the editing engines are format-specific: wml.py (Word) and pml.py (PowerPoint).

Read-only deployment

OOXML_LEDGER_READ_ONLY=1 leaves exactly server_info, digest, verify, list_receipts. The others aren't merely hidden — calling one answers Unknown tool. No write surface inside the roots at all.

CLI

ooxml-ledger verify report.docx    # exit 0 only when verified

No server, no session — digests the file, finds its receipt by content address, checks it. Wire it into CI or a pre-commit hook and an unaccounted-for change fails the build.

Desktop bundle (.mcpb)

Every GitHub Release attaches a .mcpb file — a one-click Claude Desktop install: drag it onto the app and it runs with a vendored Python runtime, no uv or manual server config needed. mcpb/manifest.json exposes the document root and read-only toggle as install-time settings instead of environment variables; the tool list matches the stdio server's.

CI builds and smoke-tests the bundle on macos-latest only, and the manifest's compatibility.platforms declares darwin only — the bundle is built and proven on macOS/arm64, nothing else. It vendors native extensions (pydantic-core, cryptography, and more) as platform-specific wheels; installing it on Windows or Linux would fail to import them.

Honest limits

• An unsigned receipt is accident-evident, not tamper-evident. It catches an agent falling back to a generic file write, an Office round-trip, a careless collaborator — not someone who rewrites the receipt alongside the document. Anchoring its hash somewhere the holder doesn't control (a git commit, a DOI, a submission portal) is what buys tamper-evidence.
• verify never replays. It checks the digest and the receipt's internal consistency; the replay runs once, at commit, and verify reports that verdict rather than recomputing it.
• pptx and xlsx have no human-visible record. Word tracked changes are a second recording layer inside the document; those two formats have none, so the ledger is the only record.
• The Word engine reaches paragraph text only (w:p/w:r/w:t). Styles, numbering, settings and relationships are uneditable and covered by the accountability check alone.

Contributing and security

CONTRIBUTING.md covers setup, the branch and commit naming CI enforces, and the release flow. SECURITY.md covers private vulnerability reporting, and is explicit about which of this project's documented limits are design rather than defects.

MIT licensed. Design notes and specifications live in docs/superpowers/.