Scenarios
These pages show how Formulon fits into concrete workflows. Each scenario chooses a different runtime — pick the one closest to your deployment, then read the matching Runtime page for setup details.
Start with a real workbook
After the one-formula quick start, test one representative workbook as early as possible. Spreadsheet engines fail or succeed on workbook details, not only on isolated formulas.
| Scenario | Runtime | Goal |
|---|---|---|
| Browser workbook upload | WASM | Recalculate a user-uploaded .xlsx without sending it to a server |
| Node service recalculation | Native Node / WASM | Recalculate uploaded or internally generated workbooks behind an API |
| Python batch recalculation | Python | Recalculate reports or models in jobs and notebooks |
| CI workbook regression | CLI | Detect formula and value drift in automated checks |
| Agent workbook editing | MCP | Let AI agents open, edit, recalculate, and save .xlsx or .xlsb through formulon-mcp |
What the scenarios share
Every scenario follows the same load → mutate → recalc → save lifecycle described in Workbook lifecycle. What changes between them is:
- where the bytes come from (
File, file system, IO stream, MCP tool input), - where the bytes go (
save()result, written file, returnedbytesfield), - which runtime owns memory and IO,
- how errors cross the host boundary.
Compatibility gate
Before adopting any scenario, inspect the workbook's formulas and decide how to handle external-service functions. Formulon has 507 real implementations among 522 recognized names, including the environment-bound CELL and INFO; the remaining 15 are deliberate unavailable service stubs such as COPILOT, PY, IMAGE, WEBSERVICE, STOCKHISTORY, RTD, and CUBE connection functions. Treat those as product decisions: reject the workbook, show a compatibility warning, or route it to an Excel-backed workflow.
For runtime-specific setup, see Runtimes. For the engine-side flow, see Workbook lifecycle.