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Show HN: Pane – An agent that edits spreadsheets

32 points by rbajp 9mo ago

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.

smallerfish 9mo ago
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?
- subpixel 9mo ago
  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.
SkyPuncher 9mo ago
How do you handle documents with Macros?
- rbajp 9mo ago
  Not implemented yet - they should be imported but will not be executed.
ashwindharne 9mo ago
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!
- rbajp 9mo ago
  Agreed, there’s a few neat tricks that can get performance to increase significantly
rubenflamshep 9mo ago
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.
- rbajp 9mo ago
  Super valuable feedback. Thank you! Will work on improving the demo.
tjchear 9mo ago
iirc there was a startup doing the same thing called sourcetable? How does pane compare to it?
mattmm11 9mo ago
Yesterday I was trying to have Gemini help put together a toy model to calculate some financial scenarios in Sheets, and it struggled mightily. The biggest challenge was it didn't have a good way to port formulas over into specific cells, so I basically had a CSV and a bullet list of formulas to put in by hand. From the demo I couldn't tell how well this use case would be handled, but I imagine better in what you've built (will try it out to test it!). I did not try Gemini in sheets, for the record, which may work better than from the chat environment. I'd echo other comments on the demo being a bit hard to follow, and it'd be useful to be able to demo without having to create an account/sign up, encouraging exploration.

32 points by rbajp 9mo ago

smallerfish 9mo ago

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?

subpixel 9mo ago
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.

SkyPuncher 9mo ago

How do you handle documents with Macros?

rbajp 9mo ago
Not implemented yet - they should be imported but will not be executed.

ashwindharne 9mo ago

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!

rbajp 9mo ago
Agreed, there’s a few neat tricks that can get performance to increase significantly

rubenflamshep 9mo ago

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.

rbajp 9mo ago
Super valuable feedback. Thank you! Will work on improving the demo.

tjchear 9mo ago

iirc there was a startup doing the same thing called sourcetable? How does pane compare to it?

mattmm11 9mo ago

Yesterday I was trying to have Gemini help put together a toy model to calculate some financial scenarios in Sheets, and it struggled mightily. The biggest challenge was it didn't have a good way to port formulas over into specific cells, so I basically had a CSV and a bullet list of formulas to put in by hand. From the demo I couldn't tell how well this use case would be handled, but I imagine better in what you've built (will try it out to test it!). I did not try Gemini in sheets, for the record, which may work better than from the chat environment. I'd echo other comments on the demo being a bit hard to follow, and it'd be useful to be able to demo without having to create an account/sign up, encouraging exploration.