Tally XML API Skill — Development skill for Claude Code

tally-xml-api

A Claude skill for **read-only** access to TallyPrime's HTTP/XML interface.

This skill teaches Claude how to construct `Export` requests against TallyPrime (port 9000 by default), read the XML responses, and diagnose common failures — without ever writing, altering, or deleting anything in Tally.

Why

TallyPrime's HTTP/XML interface has no authentication — anything that can reach the port can read *and write* the company file. This skill enforces a hard read-only boundary (no `Import`, no `Execute`, no create/alter/delete/cancel actions) so it's safe to point an AI assistant at a live Tally instance.

It also refuses to invent undocumented XML tags, report names, or TDL fragments — if something isn't in `references/export-requests.md` or supplied by the user, it says so instead of guessing.

Contents

• SKILL.md — the skill definition: connection setup, request anatomy, response parsing, known gotchas (curly quotes, inconsistent date formats, report name casing, etc.), and the read-only guardrails.
• references/export-requests.md — documented Export request payloads.

Usage

With Claude Code / Claude Desktop

1. Copy this folder into your skills directory as `tally-xml-api/`: .claude/skills/tally-xml-api/ ├── SKILL.md └── references/ └── export-requests.md

2. Make sure TallyPrime is running with the HTTP server enabled (**Exchange → Data Synchronization**, or **F1 → Settings → Advanced Configuration**), with at least one company loaded, on port 9000 (default).

3. Start a conversation and just ask for what you need — e.g.:

   • "Pull the Trial Balance from Tally"
   • "Get me the Day Book for last month"
   • "List all ledgers under Sundry Debtors"
   • "Why is this Tally request returning STATUS 0?"

   Claude will construct the appropriate `Export` XML, POST it to `http://:9000`, and parse the response — using only documented tags from `references/export-requests.md`