WriterAgent (LibreOffice) — thanks for the OnlyOffice AI inspiration + a few things back

AI
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Hello,

I maintain WriterAgent, a LibreOffice extension that adds AI chat, tool calling, and document-aware helpers for Writer, Calc, and Draw. It is also open source (GPL v3+): https://github.com/KeithCu/writeragent

I just discovered your AI support today and went through it. I adapted your create form tool-call (ported to Python, using the UNO backend, and HTML instead of Markdown.) I plan on reviewing the code to add more features.

I am posting to say thanks, but also because there may be some useful ideas I have, and future possibilities for collaboration. WriterAgent is a different stack (desktop LibreOffice), but if anyone on the team is curious, these are some things you could consider adapting:

  1. Calc =PROMPT() — LLM invoked from a cell.

  2. Delegated specialized toolsets — Narrow tool lists per domain (delegate_to_specialized_*) for sub-agents: https://github.com/KeithCu/writeragent/blob/master/docs/writer-specialized-toolsets.md

  3. Alternate agent backends — e.g. Hermes ACP

  4. Experimental memory / onboarding librarian — File-backed USER.md and onboarding agent ; local-first prefs without a cloud account.

  5. Web research sub-agent which searches the web to give you up to date information.)

If anyone wants to discuss this further, let me know!

Regards,

-Keith

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Hello @KeithCu

Thank you for the comments and your suggestions. We’ll take a closer look at those in terms of making AI integration in the Desktop Editors even better. This may take some time, but I will provide a feedback as soon as I get one.

Your insights are much appreciated.

1 Like
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Hello @Constantine,

I just wanted to follow up. I’ve added a bunch of new features that you might also like to have. The biggest is a simple, robust (cross-process) =Python (with fully Numpy!) in Calc, but also the ability to run Python scripts in Writer, attach them to documents, color-syntax highlighting, etc.

I also added multi-document support to the agent, and a background grammar checker, TeX import, and other features. I won’t paste the readme link but check it out for the latest details. The grammar checker was tricky, I wrote an article describing the challenges that got on Slashdot last week: WriterAgent (LibreOffice Plugin) Week 6-7: Async Grammar Checking and Math –

Do you have the ability to run Python? If so, you could move much faster by using / adapting my code, and we could work together.

I’ve built this for LO but I’d adapt it for OnlyOffice if there was a Python API I could use. I could build an UNO adapter layer.

Regards,

-Keith

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In terms of plugins, we work with JavaScript. You can find the info about plugins here: Getting started | ONLYOFFICE

General section of our API dedicated to extension tools (macros, plugins and custom AI tools):

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Hi @Constantine ,

Have you thought about adding Python support so people could do =Python() in spreadsheets, run Python scripts, etc.? Microsoft added Python to Excel a couple of years ago, but it runs in the cloud, etc. and their design breaks conventional recalc. However, their new version has some good ideas, if not the syntax, that are worth adopting.

JS is okay but if you could enable Python it could unlock so much, inside Calc, and other places. Feel free to contact if you ever want to talk more. I’ve sent some emails to the libreoffice-dev alias but haven’t heard anything yet.

Regards,

-Keith

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No, we haven’t. There are no plans for adding Python support, unfortunately,