Give Claude Code the Power BI skills it needs.
Install once, then just ask Claude to work with your semantic models.

Why pbi-cli • Get Started • Just Ask Claude • Skills • All Commands • Contributing

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Why pbi-cli?

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Get Started

pipx install pbi-cli-tool    # 1. Install (handles PATH automatically)
pbi connect                  # 2. Auto-detects Power BI Desktop and installs skills

Open Power BI Desktop with a .pbix file, run pbi connect, and start asking Claude.

Requires: Windows with Python 3.10+ and Power BI Desktop running.

Alternative: give Claude the repo URL

Install and set up pbi-cli from https://github.com/MinaSaad1/pbi-cli.git

Claude will clone, install, connect, and set up skills automatically.

Using pip instead of pipx?

pip install pbi-cli-tool

On Windows, pip install often places the pbi command in a directory that isn't on your PATH.

Fix: Add the Scripts directory to PATH

python -c "import site; print(site.getusersitepackages().replace('site-packages','Scripts'))"

Add the printed path to your system PATH, then restart your terminal. We recommend pipx to avoid this entirely.

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Just Ask Claude

Create measures in bulk

Debug broken DAX

Snapshot and restore your model

Audit your model for issues

Test row-level security

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Skills

After running pbi connect, Claude Code discovers 7 Power BI skills automatically. Each skill teaches Claude a different area. You don't need to memorize commands.

Skill	What you say	What Claude does
DAX	"What are the top 10 products by revenue?"	Writes and executes DAX queries, validates syntax
Modeling	"Create a star schema with Sales and Calendar"	Creates tables, relationships, measures, hierarchies
Deployment	"Save a snapshot before I make changes"	Exports/imports TMDL, manages transactions
Security	"Set up RLS for regional managers"	Creates roles, filters, perspectives
Docs	"Document everything in this model"	Generates data dictionaries, measure inventories
Partitions	"Show me the M query for the Sales table"	Manages partitions, expressions, calendar config
Diagnostics	"Why is this query so slow?"	Traces queries, checks model health, benchmarks

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Architecture

Direct in-process .NET interop from Python to Power BI Desktop. No MCP server, no external binaries, sub-second execution.

Configuration details

All config lives in ~/.pbi-cli/:

~/.pbi-cli/
  config.json          # Default connection preference
  connections.json     # Named connections
  repl_history         # REPL command history

Bundled DLLs ship inside the Python package (pbi_cli/dlls/).

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All Commands

Use --json for machine-readable output (for scripts and AI agents):

pbi --json measure list
pbi --json dax execute "EVALUATE Sales"

Run pbi <command> --help for full options.

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REPL Mode

For interactive work, the REPL keeps a persistent connection:

$ pbi repl

pbi> connect --data-source localhost:54321
Connected: localhost-54321

pbi(localhost-54321)> measure list
pbi(localhost-54321)> dax execute "EVALUATE TOPN(5, Sales)"
pbi(localhost-54321)> exit

Tab completion, command history, and a dynamic prompt showing your active connection.

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Development

git clone https://github.com/MinaSaad1/pbi-cli.git
cd pbi-cli
pip install -e ".[dev]"

ruff check src/ tests/         # Lint
mypy src/                      # Type check
pytest -m "not e2e"            # Run tests

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Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue first to discuss what you'd like to change.

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Make your changes with tests
4. Open a pull request

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_{MIT License}