README

Standalone spreadsheet writing tool for agentic document creation.

PHP 8.4+ library for writing valid xlsx files from a JSON-shaped schema. Zero framework dependencies in the core (just ext-zip). An optional Laravel adapter — service provider, facade, artisan command — sits in HolySheet\Laravel\* and only loads when used. No HTTP routes, no controllers, no opinions about how your app exposes the writer; that's your pipeline's job.

Framework-agnostic by design

Layer	What it requires
Core (`HolySheet\Agent`, `HolySheet\HolySheet`, validator, writer, schema)	PHP 8.4+, `ext-zip`. Nothing else. Works in plain PHP scripts, Symfony, Laminas, Slim, CLI tools.
Laravel adapter (`HolySheet\Laravel\*`)	Optional. Auto-registered via `extra.laravel.providers` if Laravel is installed; ignored otherwise. Provides facade, service provider, and `php artisan holy-sheet:write` command.

The package ships no HTTP endpoints. If you need an "Export to xlsx" route, you write the controller — Holy Sheet gives you the writer + facade.

Installation

Spreadsheet reads validate ZIP structure, CRC, names and expansion before XML parsing. Unsafe archives throw HolySheet\Exceptions\ArchiveRefused, whose reason identifies a corrupt, unsupported, duplicate, unsafe-path or size-limit refusal. Defaults are 64 MiB archive/part, 256 MiB total expansion, 16,384 entries and 1000:1 ratio. This bounded input layer does not add a lossless editing API.

composer require particle-academy/holy-sheet

Laravel apps auto-discover the optional adapter. Non-Laravel projects use HolySheet\Agent::* directly.

Quick start

Plain PHP (Symfony, Laminas, CLI, anywhere)

use HolySheet\Agent;

Agent::write([
    'sheets' => [[
        'name' => 'Q4 Sales',
        'columns' => [
            ['header' => 'Region', 'type' => 'string'],
            ['header' => 'Revenue', 'type' => 'currency', 'currency' => 'USD'],
            ['header' => 'YoY', 'type' => 'percent', 'decimals' => 1],
        ],
        'rows' => [
            ['North America', 4_820_000, 0.124],
            ['Europe',        3_210_000, 0.081],
            ['APAC',          2_895_000, 0.227],
        ],
        'totals' => ['Revenue' => 'sum', 'YoY' => 'avg'],
        'theme' => 'default',
    ]],
], '/tmp/q4.xlsx');

Laravel (via the facade)

use HolySheet\Laravel\Facades\HolySheet;

HolySheet::write($schema, $path);   // write to disk
$bytes = HolySheet::toBytes($schema); // raw bytes for streaming/queue jobs
$errors = HolySheet::validate($schema); // dry-run, returns structured errors
$tool = HolySheet::toolDefinition();  // JSON Schema for agent tool wiring

Why this exists

Existing PHP spreadsheet libraries are either:

Heavy and slow (PhpSpreadsheet pulls dozens of transitive deps), or
Tightly coupled to a single output format

Agentic flows need something different: a small, deterministic API where an LLM can describe the sheet as data (rows, columns, types, formats) and the package writes the file in one pass — no per-cell ceremony, no global state, no surprise dependencies.

Features

✅ Multi-sheet workbooks, inline strings, scalar types, formulas with optional cached values
✅ Full styling — bold/italic, text alignment, font color/size, fills, borders (thin, medium, thick, dashed, dotted or double, per side)
✅ Number formats — currency (USD/EUR/GBP/JPY/CNY/INR/AUD/CAD/CHF/KRW + ISO fallback), percent, date, datetime, integer, decimals
✅ Date conversion — ISO strings + DateTimeInterface → Excel serial numbers
✅ Themes — default, business, minimal, plain
✅ Symbolic totals — 'totals' => ['Revenue' => 'sum'] → SUM/AVG/COUNT/MIN/MAX formulas
✅ Merged cells, column widths (px), frozen rows/cols
✅ Data validation (2.12+): dropdowns from an inline list or a cell range (another sheet too), whole / decimal / date / text-length bounds, input prompts and error alerts. See Data validation
✅ Comments with author + color
✅ Cross-sheet formula references (Sheet2!A1)
✅ Style deduplication — every unique format becomes one record
✅ Zero third-party runtime dependencies (uses PHP's built-in ZipArchive)
✅ Structured validation errors with path, expected, got, value, hint
✅ Read path (1.1+) — Agent::describe(path) round-trips an existing xlsx back to a Holy Sheet schema with full feature parity
✅ OpenDocument read (2.2+) — Agent::describe(path) reads an .ods into the SAME schema, chosen by the file's contents rather than its extension, so a caller needs no second library and no branch. Anything else throws UnsupportedFormatException (a RuntimeException). What maps and what does not: docs/ReadPath.md
✅ Document exchange — Agent::read($bytesOrPath) (the sibling-named describe()), Agent::catalog(), Agent::extract($input, 'Q4!A1:D20') to portable content for last-word, fine-print or dark-slide, Agent::fromPortable() and a sheet insert list going the other way, and host-gated Agent::export() to csv / markdown / xlsx (off unless an ExportPolicy allows it). Hidden sheets, rows and columns are skipped and reported; formulas are cached values only. docs/ReadPath.md
✅ Schema repair (1.1+) — Agent::validateAndRepair($schema) applies conservative auto-fixes (singular sheet → sheets, stringified numerics, object-as-list, etc.)
✅ Schema builders (1.1+) — Agent::fromArray(), Agent::fromCsv(), HolySheet::fromQuery() (Laravel) — typed schemas from rows / CSV / Eloquent with no hand-crafting
✅ Formula linter (1.2+) — Agent::lint($schema) evaluates every formula and reports #VALUE! / #REF! / #DIV/0! / #NAME? / #CIRC! errors. Catches the LLM-classic header-row off-by-one (B1*12 when B1 is "Annual" and B2 is the data) with a "Did you mean B2?" hint
✅ =-formula promotion (1.3+) — a bare string cell beginning with = (e.g. '=A2+B2', '=SUM(B2:B10)') is stored as a real formula, not literal text. Use the object form {'value': '=text'} for a genuine leading-= string
✅ dumpJson() (1.3+) — Agent::dumpJson($schema, ?DumpOptions) serializes a schema to JSON (values + formulas). The read-tool counterpart to describe(): describe gives shape, dumpJson gives content. Compaction + a byte ceiling keep agent token cost bounded
✅ Agent toolkit (1.3+) — HolySheet\Toolkit\Toolkit ships the canonical Build / Write / Read / Lint / Describe tools as framework-agnostic descriptors (name + description + JSON-Schema parameters + callable handler) plus a shipped agent prompt. Map them onto any SDK in a few lines (see Agent toolkit)

Data validation (dropdowns)

A rule on what a person may type into cells: a dropdown, or a bound on a whole number, a decimal, a date or a text length, with an optional input prompt and error alert. Set it on a column to cover that column's data rows, or list it on the sheet with a range (the form a template uses, running past its sample rows):

Agent::write([
    'sheets' => [
        [
            'name' => 'Catalog',
            'columns' => [
                ['header' => 'SKU'],
                ['header' => 'Status', 'validation' => ['type' => 'list', 'values' => ['Draft', 'Live', 'Retired']]],
            ],
            'rows' => [['A-1', 'Draft']],
            'dataValidations' => [
                ['range' => 'C2:C500', 'type' => 'list', 'source' => "'Lists'!A1:A20",
                    'prompt' => ['title' => 'Category', 'text' => 'Pick a category.'],
                    'error' => ['style' => 'stop', 'title' => 'Unknown category', 'text' => 'Choose from the list.']],
                ['range' => 'D2:D500', 'type' => 'whole', 'operator' => 'between', 'min' => 0, 'max' => 1000],
                ['range' => 'E2:E500', 'type' => 'date', 'operator' => 'greaterThanOrEqual', 'value' => '2026-01-01'],
            ],
        ],
        ['name' => 'Lists', 'cells' => ['A1' => 'Tools', 'A2' => 'Parts']],
    ],
], 'catalog-template.xlsx');

type: list, whole, decimal, date (YYYY-MM-DD) or textLength.
A list takes values (inline) or source (a range, on this sheet or another), never both. Inline choices cannot contain a comma and must fit in 255 characters joined by commas, which is Excel's limit; validate() refuses anything longer and points at source.
Every other type takes operator (default between): between and notBetween take min and max, the rest take value.
allowBlank (default true), showDropdown (lists, default true), prompt: {title, text}, error: {style: stop | warning | information, title, text}.

The reader does not return validations yet: describe() of a file with them reads its cells as before.

Reading: one sheet, rows, and read limits (2.13+)

use HolySheet\Agent;
use HolySheet\Exceptions\ReadLimitExceeded;

// Only the sheet you name is parsed. Names match exactly; an unknown one throws
// SheetNotFoundException, whose message lists every sheet in the workbook.
$schema = Agent::read($bytes, ['sheet' => 'Contacts']);

// The sheet as rows of values in column order. A blank row in the middle is
// [], so $rows[$n - 1] is always row n; trailing blank rows are not padded.
$rows = Agent::rows($schema['sheets'][0]);
// A formula gives its cached computedValue (what the cell shows). Ask for
// the formula instead with 'formulas' => 'formula' ("=SUM(B2:B9)").
// A merged region's value appears at its top-left cell only.

A read is bounded by what the file expands into, not only by its bytes:

Limit	Default	Counts
`maxRows`	1,048,576	per sheet: the highest row a cell or `<row>` uses
`maxColumns`	16,384	per sheet: the highest column a cell or `<col>` uses
`maxCells`	20,000,000	the whole workbook, every cell element
`maxSharedStrings`	20,000,000	entries in the shared-strings table

Each is checked before the thing it counts is built. Override any of them with positive integers; an unknown key or any other value is refused as ArchiveRefused with reason read_limits:

try {
    Agent::read($bytes, ['limits' => ['maxRows' => 200000]]);
} catch (ReadLimitExceeded $e) {
    // $e->limit 'maxRows', $e->max 200000, $e->actual 250001, and a message for people:
    // "Spreadsheet refused: a sheet has 250,001 rows, over the limit of 200,000 rows (maxRows) by 50,001."
}

ReadLimitExceeded extends ArchiveRefused (reason read_limit), so code that already catches the archive guard keeps working. The archive guard's byte limits apply first: at the defaults a single worksheet part over 64 MiB is refused (archive_limit, limit maxPartBytes), which a sheet of 10 mixed columns reaches at about 120,000 rows. Since 2.14 those are set through the same limits option; see Large workbooks. The JavaScript and Python packages take the same options and refuse with the same reasons and messages.

Large workbooks

Every limit a read enforces is a setting (2.14+). The defaults are safe for reading uploads; raise them deliberately for big files you trust, because the real cost of a read is memory.

Limit	Default	Bounds
`maxArchiveBytes`	67,108,864 (64 MiB)	the file
`maxEntries`	16,384	members in the zip
`maxPartBytes`	67,108,864 (64 MiB)	one part, uncompressed
`maxExpandedBytes`	268,435,456 (256 MiB)	every part together, uncompressed
`maxCompressionRatio`	1,000	one part's size over its compressed size
`maxRows`	1,048,576	per sheet (Excel's own limit)
`maxColumns`	16,384	per sheet (Excel's own limit)
`maxCells`	20,000,000	the workbook
`maxSharedStrings`	20,000,000	the shared-strings table

// One read:
Agent::read($bytes, ['limits' => ['maxPartBytes' => 160 * 1048576, 'maxCells' => 2500000]]);

// Laravel, for every read through the facade or the container:
// php artisan vendor:publish --tag=holy-sheet-config, then in config/holy-sheet.php
'limits' => ['maxPartBytes' => 167772160, 'maxCells' => 2500000, /* the rest at their defaults */],

// Anywhere else, the same defaults on an instance:
$sheets = new HolySheet\HolySheet(['maxPartBytes' => 167772160, 'maxCells' => 2500000]);

A refusal names the limit to raise: $e->limit, $e->max, $e->actual, and a message like Source archive refused: archive_limit (maxPartBytes is 67,108,864; this file needs at least 275,497,997). A setting that is not a positive integer, or a name that is no limit, is refused before the file is opened, naming it.

The limits fire before the expensive part. The byte limits are checked from the zip's central directory before anything is inflated. Rows, columns, cells and shared strings are counted by streaming each part (no tree is built), before the parse, and the cell count stops the moment it passes maxCells. Measured, 500,000 rows x 10 columns (a 275 MB sheet part), memory_limit=512M: refused at the defaults in 0.03 s at a 40 MiB peak; with the part limits raised and maxCells at 1,000,000, refused in 2.5 s at 817 MiB (the inflated part is most of it).

Measured: what a read costs

PHP 8.4, Windows 11, one read per process, every limit raised to admit the file; peak is the process's committed memory, and memory_limit=-1. Workbooks written by this package: 10 or 50 columns of numbers, strings and dates. The JavaScript and Python columns are the sibling packages on the same files.

Rows x columns	Cells	Sheet part	PHP	JavaScript	Python
100,000 x 10	1,100,010	59 MB	12.5 s, 1.6 GB	7.1 s, 1.5 GB	19.6 s, 1.1 GB
250,000 x 10	2,500,010	137 MB	26.4 s, 3.6 GB	18.2 s, 2.9 GB	52.4 s, 2.4 GB
500,000 x 10	5,000,010	275 MB	54.0 s, 7.2 GB	38.6 s, 6.0 GB	98.4 s, 4.8 GB
100,000 x 50	5,000,050	284 MB	59.8 s, 7.3 GB	38.7 s, 6.1 GB	94.5 s, 4.9 GB
1,000,000 x 10	10,000,010	553 MB	over 12 GB (stopped)	refused: too long for one string	180.8 s, 9.7 GB
300,000 x 50	15,000,050	865 MB	over 12 GB (stopped)	refused: too long for one string	over 12 GB (stopped)
2,000,000 x 10 (two sheets)	20,000,020	2 x 553 MB	over 12 GB (stopped)	refused: too long for one string	over 12 GB (stopped)

"Stopped" means the run was killed at a 12 GB cap. By the per-cell figures below, PHP would need about 14 GB at 1,000,000 x 10, and Python about 19 GB and 6 minutes at 2,000,000 x 10; those two are estimates, not measured. The last three rows' stopped runs, and JavaScript's refusals at 300,000 x 50 and 2,000,000 x 10, were measured on the 2.14 limits before the streaming count landed (JavaScript then failed with V8's bare Error; the typed refusal was re-measured on the 1,000,000 x 10 file: 4.7 s, 1.2 GB). Every other cell is this release.

Per cell, steady across sizes: PHP about 1,510 bytes and 11 to 12 microseconds; JavaScript about 1,260 bytes and 7 to 8 microseconds; Python about 1,015 bytes and 18 to 21 microseconds. A sheet part is about 55 to 58 bytes per cell, so set maxPartBytes at roughly 60 bytes times the cells you want to admit.

PHP's memory_limit does not cover the parse. libxml's tree is allocated outside it, so a read's process peak runs about 25% above PHP's own figure, and an oversized read fails with a fatal error rather than a refusal. Measured walls, 10 mixed columns:

`memory_limit`	Reads	Fails at
512M	40,000 rows (400,010 cells)	46,000 rows
1G	86,000 rows (860,010 cells)	92,000 rows
2G	180,000 rows (1,800,010 cells)	184,000 rows

So set maxCells below what your memory_limit can parse, about memory_limit / 1,300 cells, and the read refuses cleanly instead.

Where it gets significant (over about 30 s, or over about 2 GB): PHP crosses 2 GB at about 1,400,000 cells (140,000 rows of 10) and 30 s at about 2,700,000; JavaScript crosses 2 GB at about 1,600,000 cells and 30 s at about 4,000,000, and cannot read a part past 536,870,888 characters at all (about 970,000 rows of 10); Python crosses 30 s at about 1,500,000 cells and 2 GB at about 2,000,000. These are interpolated from the table.

Recommended ceilings, for a read in a web request: about 1,000,000 cells in PHP (with memory_limit at 2G), about 1,500,000 in JavaScript and Python. For a large CRM export read in a queue job, up to 2,500,000 cells (250,000 rows of 10, or 100,000 of 25): maxPartBytes 167,772,160 (160 MiB) and maxCells 2,500,000, everything else at its default; give PHP memory_limit=4G, Node --max-old-space-size=4096, and expect 20 to 55 seconds. Past about 2,500,000 cells, or any sheet part the 64 MiB default refuses, a read this package can do in memory is minutes and gigabytes in every port: that is the size at which a streaming reader is needed, and this package does not have one.

Excel and LibreOffice templates (.xltx, .ots)

An .xltx is an .xlsx whose workbook part is declared a template; an .ots is an .ods whose mimetype (and manifest root entry) says spreadsheet-template. Agent::describe() reads both exactly as it reads their twins and adds "sourceKind": "template" (also Workbook::$sourceKind from readWorkbook()). A document description has no sourceKind key, as before.

Agent::describe('budget.xltx');            // [..., 'sourceKind' => 'template']
Agent::convertTemplate('budget.xltx');     // .xlsx bytes ('document' | 'template' | null = flip)

vendor/bin/holy-sheet template:convert budget.xltx budget.xlsx
php artisan holy-sheet:template-convert budget.ods budget.ots --to=template

Conversion rewrites only the declaration: the content-type value in [Content_Types].xml, or the ODF mimetype entry plus the manifest's root media-type (ODF 1.3 requires the two to match). Every other member is copied as its original zip record, byte for byte, and mimetype stays first and stored. No reader or writer is in the path.

Refused with HolySheet\Exceptions\OfficeTemplateRefused (a constant reason): macro-enabled templates .xltm (macro_enabled; never read, never converted, and an .xlsm is not converted either), and a package declaring a template of another family or whose parts disagree with its declaration (family_mismatch). Archive guards apply first, so bombs and unsafe names raise ArchiveRefused as for any workbook.

Agent toolkit

Every team building a spreadsheet agent on Holy Sheet hand-writes the same Build / Write / Read / Lint tools and the same validate → lint → repair loop. That layer is shipped — framework-agnostic, zero coupling:

use HolySheet\Toolkit\Toolkit;
use HolySheet\Toolkit\ArraySchemaStore;

$kit = Toolkit::for(new ArraySchemaStore());        // or your own SchemaStore
$system = Toolkit::instructions();                  // the shipped agent prompt

foreach ($kit->tools() as $tool) {
    // $tool->name, $tool->description, $tool->parameters (JSON Schema), $tool->handler
    $sdk->registerTool($tool->name, $tool->description, $tool->parameters, $tool->handler);
}

The host provides three things by implementing SchemaStore (getSchema(), setSchema(), getId()) — where the workbook lives, the agent loop, and the UI. The toolkit provides the tools, the prompts, and the self-correcting write behavior (write_xlsx validates → lints → and only persists when clean; on error it returns the issues so the agent fixes and retries).

Recipe: laravel/ai

laravel/ai consumes the same four fields. Wrap each descriptor in a Tool — no extra package required:

use Laravel\Ai\Tools\Tool;
use HolySheet\Toolkit\Toolkit;

$descriptors = Toolkit::for($store)->byName();

$tools = array_map(
    fn ($d) => Tool::make($d->name)
        ->description($d->description)
        ->schema($d->parameters)
        ->using(fn (array $args) => $d->call($args)),
    $descriptors,
);

return $agent->withInstructions(Toolkit::instructions())->withTools($tools)->stream($prompt);

Versions as diffs

Agent::diff($a, $b) returns the ops that turn one schema into another, and Agent::reduce($schema, $ops) applies them. Keep the current workbook as a real file and each older version as the ops that restore it:

use HolySheet\Agent;

$old = Agent::describe($currentPath);
$ops = Agent::diff($edited, $old);        // store these with the version

Agent::reduce($edited, $ops);             // equals $old
Agent::opSchema();                        // JSON Schema for one op

Exact: reduce($a, diff($a, $b)) equals $b, key order aside.
Small: one changed cell is one set_cell, and an inserted row is one insert_rows plus that row's cells. Rows and columns are aligned by content before cells are compared.
Nothing for no change: schemas that write the same workbook diff to [], so diff($s, describe(<file of toBytes($s)>)) is []. Agent::equivalent() asks that question directly.

set_cell, set_range and set_workbook are fancy-sheets' SheetOp shapes, so stored ops can drive a live useSheetSync session. The other ops cover sheets, rows, columns, merges, widths, frozen panes and meta. Granular ops address sheets in the cell form describe() returns; a sheet authored as columns/rows is replaced whole when it changes.

Compatibility

	Versions
PHP	8.2, 8.3, 8.4
Laravel adapter	10.x, 11.x, 12.x, 13.x (optional)
Frameworks	any PHP 8.4+ project — Symfony, Laminas, Slim, plain PHP, CLI
Runtime deps	none beyond `ext-zip`

Documentation

Topic	Doc
Schema reference — every field, every type, every option	docs/Schema.md
Recipes — 14 end-to-end patterns including round-trip + helper builders	docs/Recipes.md
Read path — `describe()` contract + lossy-fields list	docs/ReadPath.md
Laravel adapter — facade methods, service provider, artisan command	docs/LaravelAdapter.md
Agent skill — system prompt for LLM consumption	skills/holy-sheet.md
JSON Schema — for tool-use validators	skills/holy-sheet.schema.json

Run the demo

php examples/sales-report.php /tmp/sales.xlsx

Writes a 3-sheet workbook (Sales / Notes / Status) demonstrating every feature — currency + percent + date columns, totals row, frozen header, merged title cell, comment, custom theme. See examples/README.md for the full walkthrough.

Three entry points, one schema

Caller	Entry
Plain PHP	`HolySheet\Agent::write($schema, $path)` (static, framework-free)
Laravel facade	`HolySheet\Laravel\Facades\HolySheet::write($schema, $path)`
CLI / agent shell	`php artisan holy-sheet:write --in=schema.json --out=q4.xlsx` (Laravel command)

Need an HTTP route? Build your own controller around the facade — Holy Sheet doesn't ship one. See docs/LaravelAdapter.md for the recommended shape.

Agent guide

Building a workbook with an LLM? agent-guide/professional-workbooks.md (also HolySheet\Agent::guide()) is the guide to give the model alongside the JSON schema: the bar a professional workbook meets, the schema idioms that reach it, and the failures seen in real agent builds. It works with any agent loop.

License

MIT

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