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Show HN: Pane – An agent that edits spreadsheets

paneapp.com

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Show HN: Pane – An agent that edits spreadsheets

#1

Post by rbajp »

Hi HN,

I built Pane, a spreadsheet-native agent that operates directly on the grid (cells, formulas, references, ranges) instead of treating spreadsheets as text.

Most spreadsheet AI tools fail because they: - hallucinate formulas - lose context across edits - can't reliably modify existing models

Pane runs inside the spreadsheet environment and uses the same primitives a human would: selecting cells, editing formulas, inserting ranges, reconciling tables.

I launched it on Product Hunt this weekend and it unexpectedly resonated, which made me curious whether this approach actually holds up under scrutiny.

I'd love feedback on: - obvious failure modes you expect - whether this is fundamentally better than scripts + formulas + copilots

Happy to answer technical questions.

Show HN: Pane – An agent that edits spreadsheets
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Re: Show HN: Pane – An agent that edits spreadsheets

#4

Post by ashwindharne »

I'm building something similar, but as an Excel add-in instead of a standalone product.

In real use-cases, it seems that by far the hardest part is figuring out the right representation for a spreadsheet workbook and the right primitives for the agent to be able to navigate it adeptly and cost-effectively; structure is incredibly variable and the data just compresses rather poorly (values, formulas, formatting, charts, pivots, etc.).

Great stuff though, think we'll see a lot of movement in the space in the coming years!

Re: Show HN: Pane – An agent that edits spreadsheets

#5

Post by rbajp »

ashwindharne wrote: post #4

I'm building something similar, but as an Excel add-in instead of a standalone product. In real use-cases, it seems that by far the hardest part is figuring out the right representation for a spreadsheet workbook and the right primitives for the agent to be able to navigate it adeptly and cost-effectively; structure is incredibly variable and the data just compresses rather poorly (values, formulas, formatting, chart…

Agreed, there’s a few neat tricks that can get performance to increase significantly

Re: Show HN: Pane – An agent that edits spreadsheets

#7

Post by subpixel »

smallerfish wrote: post #2

What's your experience with the competition? I have never tried gemini in sheets, but don't you think google will get there soon if they're not already?

Gemini in sheets is not that hot yet, but I think it's got hancuffs on to prevent people destroying their valuable work product.

But if I ask Gemini to build be formulas and than just paste them into Google Sheets the results are pretty darn good.

Re: Show HN: Pane – An agent that edits spreadsheets

#8

Post by rbajp »

rubenflamshep wrote: post #6

I fell out of the funnel during the demo. Not sure if there was a browser issue but the video had no sound and watching spreadsheet navigation with no context left me completely lost as to what was happening.

Super valuable feedback. Thank you! Will work on improving the demo.
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