A Python skill suite for AI agents to create and edit LibreOffice documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.

LibreOffice Agent Skills

A Python skill suite that lets AI agents create and edit LibreOffice documents, spreadsheets, and presentations through a clean, stable API — without wrestling with the UNO API directly.

Quick start:

Who This Is For
Prerequisites
Installation

A bit more on the details:

Why This Exists
What's Included
How It Works
Usage Examples

Development & contributing:

Project Structure
Development
Contributing

Who This Is For

This skill suite targets AI agents that need to produce or modify real LibreOffice documents as part of their work. Openclaw, Claude Code, Cowork, OpenCode, Codex, Amp, Cursor, Roo Code, Kilo Code, Antigravity, etc. Any agent harness that's compatible with agent skills.

In other words, this skill suite is designed for users who want a well-tested, headless Python library on top of LibreOffice's UNO API, automating LibreOffice operations without building the infrastructure themselves.

Local first, free to use.

Prerequisites

Requirement	Version	Notes
Python	3.12+
LibreOffice	26.2+ (recommended)	System-installed; headless mode used
uv	Any recent	Package manager (recommended, for development only)

Installing LibreOffice

Visit and download the installer from the official LibreOffice download page.

The skill scans common spots to locate the LibreOffice binary. For non-standard installs, set the LIBREOFFICE_PROGRAM_PATH environment variable to the LibreOffice program directory.

Some features, including Markdown import/export and Calc JSON/XML import, require LibreOffice 26.2 or newer.

Installation

Via `npx skills`

npx skills add dfk1352/LibreOffice-skills

Via `npx openskills`

npx openskills install dfk1352/LibreOffice-skills

From Source

git clone https://github.com/dfk1352/LibreOffice-skills.git
cd LibreOffice-skills
uv sync

# Rebuild the skills/*/scripts/ bundles from src/ (after any src/ change)
python scripts/sync_bundles.py

Then copy (or symlink) the skill folders into your agent harness's skill directory (typically ~/.agents/skills/):

cp -r skills/libreoffice-writer  ~/.agents/skills/
cp -r skills/libreoffice-calc    ~/.agents/skills/
cp -r skills/libreoffice-impress ~/.agents/skills/

If the uno Python module is not on the default path (common on Linux), add the system UNO package alongside it:

export PYTHONPATH="$HOME/.agents/skills/libreoffice-writer/scripts:/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages"
export PYTHONPATH="$HOME/.agents/skills/libreoffice-calc/scripts:/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages"
export PYTHONPATH="$HOME/.agents/skills/libreoffice-impress/scripts:/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages"

Why This Exists

LibreOffice's UNO API is powerful but notoriously difficult. Agents that try to drive it directly spend most of their token budget on error recovery rather than the actual task.

This skill suite aims to solve that by packaging the UNO complexity behind a small, predictable interface:

Session-based editing — open a document once, make all your changes through a single live connection, close and save. No per-operation process spawning overhead, no race conditions.
Patch DSL — express a multi-step edit plan as a single structured string and get back a machine-readable result. Supports atomic mode (all-or-nothing) and best_effort mode (apply what you can, report what failed).
Isolated headless process — each session launches LibreOffice with a throwaway user profile and a unique named pipe. Nothing leaks between sessions; CI servers stay clean.
Visual verification — every skill exposes a snapshot function that exports a PNG of a page, spreadsheet area, or slide, so an agent can inspect the rendered output before handing the file to the user.
Zero install on the agent side — the scripts/ bundle is a self-contained Python package. Drop it on PYTHONPATH and import writer / import calc / import impress just works.

What's Included

Three skills ship in this repository, all sharing the same session/patch design and the same underlying UNO bridge.

Writer (`libreoffice-writer`) — `.odt` documents

Full document lifecycle: create, open, read, edit, save, export to PDF, DOCX, or Markdown.

Editing operations cover text insertion and replacement, rich character and paragraph formatting (font, size, color, bold, italic, alignment, spacing), tables (insert, update, delete), images (embed with size control), and unordered/ordered lists.

Calc (`libreoffice-calc`) — `.ods` spreadsheets

Create and edit spreadsheets with full cell and range operations: read/write values and formulas, bulk range writes, named ranges, number formatting, cell styles (font, color, borders, alignment), sheet management (add, rename, delete), data validation rules, and chart creation (bar, line, pie, scatter).

Impress (`libreoffice-impress`) — `.odp` presentations

Complete slide deck authoring: add, delete, move, and duplicate slides; insert text boxes, shapes, images, tables, charts, and audio/video; set speaker notes; manage master pages (list, apply, import from template, set background color); and export to PDF or PPTX.

Shared Infrastructure

All three skills include the same set of shared modules:

UNO Bridge — headless LibreOffice process management and connection.
Session base — BaseSession with context-manager support and closed-guard semantics.
Color helpers — resolve_color() accepts CSS color names ("cornflowerblue") or 0xRRGGBB integers interchangeably.
Exception hierarchy — app-specific errors (WriterSkillError, CalcSkillError, ImpressSkillError) with precise subclasses for target resolution failures, ambiguous matches, and formatting errors.
Snapshot tool — app-specific utility to help agents with visual modality to verify editting results.

How It Works

Each editing session maps to exactly one headless LibreOffice process and one open document. The process is spawned with a unique named pipe and a temporary, isolated user profile that is discarded on exit. Nothing persists between sessions; no global state can accumulate.

Within a session, every operation goes through the live UNO connection — text insertions, cell writes, slide manipulations — without reopening the file each time. When the session closes (or its context manager exits), the document is saved and the process is terminated.

The patch interface is a higher-level layer on top of sessions. It accepts an INI-style string describing one or more operations, executes them in order against the open document, and returns a PatchApplyResult with per-operation status.

Usage Examples

Session API — building a report in Writer

import writer

# Create a blank document
writer.create_document("report.odt")

with writer.WriterSession("report.odt") as session:
    session.insert_text("Q1 Sales Report\n")
    session.format_text(
        target=writer.WriterTarget(kind="text", text="Q1 Sales Report"),
        formatting=writer.TextFormatting(bold=True, font_size=18),
    )
    session.insert_table(
        rows=4, cols=3,
        data=[
            ["Region", "Revenue", "Growth"],
            ["North",  "142 000", "+12%"],
            ["South",  "98 000",  "+7%"],
            ["West",   "201 000", "+19%"],
        ],
    )
    session.export("report.pdf", export_format="pdf")

# Render page 1 as PNG for visual check
result = writer.snapshot_page("report.odt", "report_preview.png", page=1)

Patch DSL — batch-editing a spreadsheet

The patch interface lets an agent express an entire edit plan as a single string. This is useful when an agent wants to compose the full set of changes before committing any of them.

import calc

calc.create_spreadsheet("budget.ods")

patch_text = """
[op1]
type = write_range
target.kind = range
target.sheet = Sheet1
target.row = 0
target.col = 0
target.end_row = 3
target.end_col = 2
data <<JSON
[
  ["Department", "Budget",  "Spent"],
  ["Engineering", 120000,   98000],
  ["Marketing",    60000,   55000],
  ["Operations",   40000,   38500]
]
JSON

[op2]
type = format_range
target.kind = range
target.sheet = Sheet1
target.row = 0
target.col = 0
target.end_row = 0
target.end_col = 2
format.bold = true
format.color = 0x4472C4
"""

result = calc.patch("budget.ods", patch_text, mode="atomic")
print(result.overall_status)   # "ok"

Project Structure

src/
  uno_bridge.py          # Headless LibreOffice connection
  session.py             # BaseSession ABC
  colors.py              # Shared color name resolution
  exceptions.py          # Base exception hierarchy
  writer/                # Writer skill modules
  calc/                  # Calc skill modules
  impress/               # Impress skill modules
tests/                   # Unit and integration tests
skills/
  libreoffice-writer/
    SKILL.md             # Skill definition with YAML frontmatter (for agents)
    references/          # Troubleshooting guides
    scripts/             # Bundled modules (writer + shared) — set as PYTHONPATH
  libreoffice-calc/
    SKILL.md
    scripts/
  libreoffice-impress/
    SKILL.md
    scripts/
scripts/
  package_skill.py       # Zip a skill directory into a .skill archive
  sync_bundles.py        # Re-sync bundled packages from src/ into skills/

Development

git clone https://github.com/dfk1352/LibreOffice-skills.git
cd LibreOffice-skills
uv sync

# Re-sync bundled packages after changing src/
python scripts/sync_bundles.py

# Run unit tests
uv run pytest tests/ \
  --ignore=tests/writer/test_writer_workflows.py \
  --ignore=tests/calc/test_calc_workflows.py \
  --ignore=tests/impress/test_impress_workflows.py

# Run integration tests (requires a running LibreOffice instance)
uv run pytest tests/writer/test_writer_workflows.py \
              tests/calc/test_calc_workflows.py \
              tests/impress/test_impress_workflows.py

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Feel free to open issues or PRs to make this skill better.

LibreOffice Agent Skills

LibreOffice Agent Skills

Table of Contents

Who This Is For

Prerequisites

Installing LibreOffice

Installation

Via npx skills

Via npx openskills

From Source

Why This Exists

What's Included

Writer (libreoffice-writer) — .odt documents

Calc (libreoffice-calc) — .ods spreadsheets

Impress (libreoffice-impress) — .odp presentations

Shared Infrastructure

How It Works

Usage Examples

Session API — building a report in Writer

Patch DSL — batch-editing a spreadsheet

Project Structure

Development

Contributing

Via `npx skills`

Via `npx openskills`

Writer (`libreoffice-writer`) — `.odt` documents

Calc (`libreoffice-calc`) — `.ods` spreadsheets

Impress (`libreoffice-impress`) — `.odp` presentations