gridcraft/docs/macros.md

Macros

Last updated: 2026-10-25 · Change: minor (debugging macros: macro.debug)

GridCraft macros are typed, declarative lists of commands, not VBA. Every step runs a GridCraft command (the same ids the ribbon, CLI and MCP use) or one of three bounded control steps. A macro declares the inputs it works on, runs as one undo step, rolls all workbook changes back on an error (a file it already wrote stays), checks where its results will land before it writes them, and does not touch files without permission. Agents run macros with macro.run like any other command.

This page describes the macro format, its tokens, and running, checking and debugging macros. The engine has no macro recorder or management commands in this version, and no macro interface.

A macro

{
  "name": "Totals",
  "description": "Adds a total next to the amounts",
  "inputs": [{"name": "Input", "header": true, "cols": [2, 2], "colTypes": ["text", "number"]}],
  "output": {"anchor": "Input.right(2).cell(1,2)", "onConflict": "ask"},
  "steps": [
    {"type": "command", "id": "cell.set", "params": {"cell": "Output", "input": "Total"}},
    {"type": "command", "id": "cell.set", "params": {"cell": "Output.offset(1,0)", "input": "=SUM({{Input.data.col(2)}})"}},
    {"type": "repeat", "over": "Input.data", "of": "rows", "max": 1000, "body": [
      {"type": "if", "cell": "Row.cell(1,2)", "op": "gt", "value": 100,
       "then": [{"type": "command", "id": "home.bold", "params": {"range": "Row"}}]}
    ]},
    {"type": "stop", "message": "Done."}
  ],
  "permissions": []
}

• Steps: command (id, params), repeat (each row or column of over, at most max times), if (cell compared with value by eq, ne, gt, ge, lt, le, empty, notEmpty or contains; then and else lists) and stop (message; rollback: true undoes the run). Every step can carry enabled, breakpoint and note. The short form {"command": "cell.set", "params": {…}} is accepted for a command step.
• Inputs: kind (cell or range), rows and cols as [min, max] (0 for no maximum; rows exclude the header), header, colTypes (number, text, date, bool, any), nonEmpty and defaultRef. These declare what a range must look like for the macro to work on it. An input's name is letters, digits and _, starting with a letter, and is neither a token of its own (Output, Row, Column, Name) nor something that reads as a cell reference (Q1), so a step written with plain A1 text keeps meaning the cell. The declaration is checked as a whole: neither rows nor cols may have a least above its most, a cell input has one row and one column ([1, 1], or the default [1, 0]), no header and at most one column type, and no input lists more column types than it allows columns. A run binds each input to the range it is given, its default, or (for the first input) the selection, and refuses with messages that name the cells: "Input column 2 (Amount) must hold numbers; C4 holds text."
• Limits: 1,000 macros a workbook, 10,000 steps a macro, Repeat and If nested 4 deep, and 64 inputs a macro. Names (of macros and inputs) and command ids are at most 255 characters; descriptions, step notes, Stop messages and If values (as JSON) 4,096; references and tokens (output.anchor, defaultRef, a Repeat's over, an If's cell) 1,024; a shortcut 64. A macro lists at most 256 permissions, each a command id, and an input at most 16,384 column types. One-line fields hold no line breaks or other control characters, and a command id is letters, digits, . and _. A command step's params are bounded only by the size of the whole macro (4,194,304 characters of JSON). A macro read from a file that breaks any of these is left out with a warning; it is never changed to fit. When a macro runs, a Repeat whose range has more rows or columns than its max is refused, and a run executes at most 100,000 steps (each pass through a Repeat counts), passes its commands at most 256 MB of parameters, all steps together, and takes at most 60 seconds, all three shared by the footprint dry runs and the run itself (timeLimit to change the time; the web build has no clock, so there only the step and parameter limits apply).

Tokens

References in step parameters can be tokens, worked out when the step runs:

Token	Means
Input, or another input's name	the range the input is bound to
Output	the output rule's anchor
Row, Column	the current row or column of the Repeat around the step
Name:Total	a defined name, or a table's data

Methods narrow or move a range and chain: col(2) or col("Amount"), row(1), cols(2..3), rows(2..), cell(r,c) (relative to the top-left cell; cell(0,1) is the cell above), offset(r,c), resize(h,w), data (without the header row), below(n) and right(n). col("Amount") looks the name up in an input's header row, directly or after data; on a range without a header row it is refused. A defined name can hold periods: Name:Sales.Q1 is the name Sales.Q1, and Name:Sales.Q1.cell(1,1) its first cell, because the longest name or table that exists is used and methods follow it.

Write a token as the whole value of a reference parameter (cell, range, target, keys ending in Cell or Range…), as {"$ref": "Input.col(2)"} anywhere, or as {{Input.col(2)}} inside any string, such as a formula; {{{{ in a string is a literal {{. Under the general keys that other commands use for plain words (to, from, at, area, source, target, destination, location), a bare Row or Column stays text (a replacement word, a pivot area); write Row.col(2), {{Row}} or {"$ref": "Row"} there. Plain A1 references stay absolute; a Name: anchor follows inserted rows. A reference with a sheet name is never a token, so Output!A1 is a cell on a sheet called Output, even when a token or input has that name. Input.data on a range that is only a header row, and Name: of a table with no data rows, are refused rather than read as the header.

Running

macro.run {name, inputs?, onConflict?, overwrite?, approve?, timeLimit?}:

1. Policy. File commands other than Properties, exports and printing (such as Open, Save and Close), app, window (including New Window, Hide and Unhide), automate and macro commands, and Undo and Redo, never run in a macro. File › Properties runs, and so do exports and printing (file.exportPdf, exportCsv, exportHtml, print, printPreview, saveBytes) that only produce bytes. Reading or writing a file (data.getData, data.fromTextCsv, insert.picture or pageLayout.background with a path, or an export or print with a path) needs the command in the macro's permissions. Any path other than null counts, including a blank one and a token, and the policy is checked again on the parameters as they are when the step runs. A macro that touches files, or that came with a workbook opened from a file, runs once the person approves it: the call fails with approve: … and runs with approve: true. Approval lasts for the session, until the macro changes. Every step other than an approved file step runs inside the file sandbox that scripts use, so no other parameter reaches a file either.
2. Footprint. Unless the conflict rule is overwrite, the macro first runs in dry-run mode on the real workbook, and everything is put back. Cells it would write outside its inputs that hold data, and sheets and objects it would delete, are conflicts, handled by onConflict (or the macro's output.onConflict): ask (the call fails with confirm: …; overwrite: true answers it), fail, overwrite, shiftDown or shiftRight (Insert Cells makes room, then the footprint is checked again). Steps that touch files, and Solver, end the dry run early; the footprint then says it is partial. Unless the rule is overwrite, the run also checks every step as it goes, since the footprint can miss a write: it is partial, or a value such as RAND or NOW sends the run another way than the dry run. A step that writes over cells, sheets or objects that held data when the run started stops the run and rolls the workbook back (a file already written stays): it asks (confirm: …) under ask and fails otherwise, since shifting can't make room that late. Moving cells that hold data, as inserting or deleting rows or cells above them does, counts as writing over them, in the footprint and in this check: both compare cells by place.
3. Run. One undo step, "Run Macro: Totals". Any error rolls the whole run back and names the step: Step 3.1 (cell.set): … (paths are 1-based; 2.1 is inside a Repeat, 4.then.1 inside an If). The message ends "Nothing was changed.", or names the files the run already wrote, which stay. An input the macro doesn't have, an input that isn't reference text, and onConflict, overwrite, approve or timeLimit of the wrong kind are refused rather than ignored. When a step inserts, deletes or moves sheets, rows, columns or cells, the inputs, the output and the range of a Repeat in progress move with their cells, as references in formulas do; a step that deletes one of them, or changes the size of a range a Repeat is going over, stops the run.

macro.check {name, inputs?, onConflict?, overwrite?, timeLimit?} reports the bound inputs, the output anchor, any approval needed and the footprint, and puts back everything the dry run changed. ok says whether macro.run with the same parameters would go ahead without a question; when it wouldn't, errors says why: the run would fail at a step, a Stop step rolls it back, it would write over data under ask or fail, shifting can't make room, or the run would go past the step or parameter limit counting the dry runs before it. The random numbers RAND gives move on, as after any recalculation.

Debugging

macro.debug {action, …} with start (name, inputs, breakpoints), step, continue, runTo (step: a path), stop (keep: true keeps the changes) and state. breakpoints can be given with any action; breakpointsOnly: true makes the list replace the steps' own flags. The run stays one undo step; while it is open, edits of the workbooks it touched (its own, and any other its steps changed) are refused with "Finish or stop the macro first", also when another command makes them (stopping Record Actions saves a script), and other workbooks stay editable. Each answer gives the next step with its parameters as they would run, the parameters of the step that just ran, and the cells changed so far.

Storage

Macros are saved in the workbook: as a field in GridCraft's JSON format, and in xlsx as hidden defined names (_gc_macro_<n>_<k>, the macro's JSON split into string literals within Excel's limits), which other spreadsheet applications keep but do not run. A visible name of that shape is someone's own name: opening a file leaves it alone, and saving stores the macros under indices it does not use.

Each macro carries its format version, v (1 in this version; a missing v reads as 1). When a file is opened, a macro in a newer format (a v above 1) is kept unread, with a warning: this version can't show or run it, and saving writes it back unchanged, so the newer version gets it back whole. It is never read in part. Kept macros count toward the 1,000-macro limit after the readable ones, and one too large for an xlsx file is left out. A macro that is damaged or over the limits is left out with one warning, and the rest of the workbook and its other macros open; a macro that was left out is not in the saved file.

Automate scripts and VBA

Automate scripts (automate.recordActions, newScript, allScripts, runScript, deleteScript) are an older, separate feature. They keep their commands, parameters, storage (_sc_scripts) and results, and View › Macros (view.macros) still lists them. Macros neither read nor change them; a workbook can hold a script and a macro with the same name.

A VBA project in an .xlsm or .xltm file is preserved on save and never run. GridCraft macros are stored apart from it.