bilig

Where bilig Is Not Excel-Compatible Yet

Status: public compatibility boundary for @bilig/headless

bilig is not a complete Excel clone. The current adoption wedge is narrower: @bilig/headless gives Node services and agents a workbook API with formulas, structural edits, persistence, validation, and auditable benchmark artifacts.

This page names the main compatibility boundaries so people can evaluate the project without reading a pile of benchmark JSON first.

Current Evidence Snapshot

The repository keeps compatibility and performance claims tied to checked-in artifacts:

Those artifacts are useful evidence. They are not a blanket promise that every Excel workbook, every formula argument shape, every UI interaction, or every third-party file behaves exactly like desktop Excel.

The Biggest Non-Goals

Native macro execution

bilig does not execute VBA or spreadsheet macro code.

The XLSM path detects macro-enabled workbooks, preserves safe workbook cells, preserves the original VBA payload and code names for round trips, and records a non-execution warning. Native macro execution remains a deliberately declined runtime feature: xlsx.macros.execution.

That boundary is security posture, not a missing convenience feature.

Full Excel application parity

@bilig/headless is a workbook engine package, not a replacement for the full Excel desktop application.

It does not claim complete parity for:

The current XLSX scorecard proves round trips for values, formulas, formats, defined names, comments, styles, conditional formats, dimensions, merges, freeze panes, filters, sorts, sheet protection, protected ranges, data validations, tables, charts, pivots, multi-sheet workbooks, and macro payload preservation. It does not turn charts and pivots into a promise of full desktop Excel interactivity.

Blanket formula parity

The formula registry and fixture suite are broad, but the claim is still evidence-scoped.

The current formula semantics artifact proves the committed canonical fixtures and workbook semantics fixtures. It should not be read as “every Excel formula argument combination and locale/date edge case is already proven.” New edge cases should become fixtures, and unsupported deterministic formulas in an XLSX corpus should show up as mismatches rather than being silently accepted.

Cached XLSX result parity for arbitrary corpora

Cached-result parity is a corpus property, not a universal package guarantee.

Use:

pnpm workpaper:xlsx-corpus:check -- /path/to/xlsx-corpus

The verifier reads .xlsx, .xlsm, and .xls files and compares formula cells against cached workbook results where that comparison is meaningful. Missing cached results and volatile or environment-dependent formulas such as NOW() and CELL() are counted as skipped, not as proof of parity.

For a concrete report walkthrough, see docs/xlsx-corpus-verifier-walkthrough.md.

UI dominance claims

The local browser grid and WorkPaper headless engine are different surfaces.

The live browser scorecard currently covers public unauthenticated browser load and viewport scroll timing for Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel Web. Its own limitations say it does not cover authenticated edit latency, equivalent tenants, every browser-cache condition, or every real user workflow.

Do not use the headless WorkPaper benchmark to claim the browser grid is faster than every spreadsheet UI. Keep those claims separated.

When bilig Is A Good Fit Today

@bilig/headless is a good fit when you need:

Start with:

How To Improve Compatibility

The right contribution is usually not a vague “support Excel better” issue. Use one of these shapes:

Small, reproducible compatibility reports are much more useful than screenshots or broad parity claims.

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