Super BI MCP

An MCP server that gives AI agents full local Power BI authoring - the semantic model, the report, and Power Query M - by editing .pbix and PBIP/PBIR files directly. 490 tools, backed by ~1,800 automated tests.

Point Claude (or any MCP client) at it and the agent can build a model, write the DAX, lay out the report pages and visuals, transform the Power Query, lint and auto-fix best-practice violations, prove the RLS actually filters, rename a column across the model and every report binding in one atomic call, screenshot the rendered result out of a running Power BI Desktop, evaluate DAX and read table rows out of a closed .pbix with no Fabric, edit a closed .pbit template's model with no Desktop at all, and hand you back a finished .pbix - all on your machine.

Why this instead of the other Power BI MCP servers

	Super BI MCP	Microsoft Power BI Modeling MCP + agent skills	Community servers
Semantic model authoring (TOM)	Yes, with write transactions + rollback	Yes	Partial
Report authoring (pages, visuals, filters, bookmarks)	Yes - legacy Layout and PBIR, deterministic tools	Skill-guided raw JSON editing by the LLM (separate skill pack)	Report-only or preview
Direct .pbix editing	Yes	No - PBIP files only	Rare
Power Query M authoring	Yes - 60+ transform/generator tools	Analyze/refactor only	Rare
Propagating renames (model rename rewrites DAX, M, and every report binding, atomically)	Yes	No	One server, PBIP-only
Model-to-report cross-analysis (usage, unused fields incl. conditional-formatting bindings, broken-reference repair)	Yes	No	Partial
RLS execution testing (run any query as any role, per-role matrix)	Yes	No	Partial
DAX benchmark + Analysis Services trace (FE/SE split, cache hits)	Yes	Benchmark yes	Partial
Offline DAX linter (incl. catching hallucinated function names before they hit the engine)	Yes	No	One server
Visual formatting	Deterministic property registry for 52 visual types, validated against the theme schema	n/a	Raw JSON edits
Best Practice Analyzer	89 rules, 28 with automatic fixes, Tabular Editor ruleset import	Loose	Rare
Desktop feedback loop (page screenshots + hot-reload from a running Desktop)	Yes - via the Desktop Bridge	Yes - same bridge, separate CLI	No
Layout, star-schema, theme-compliance, naming and file-integrity audits	Yes	No	Partial
DAX generators (time-intelligence, ranking, segmentation, calc groups, dynamic RLS, custom calendars)	Yes, live or straight to TMDL offline	n/a	Partial
Works offline, no Fabric account	Yes	Yes (local mode)	Varies
Ships as	One integrated server	A server + a skills pack + two CLIs	Single-purpose servers

The short version: Microsoft's official server stops at the semantic model, and its report story is a separate skill pack that has the LLM hand-write layout JSON. This is one server that authors the whole artifact - model, report, and Power Query - with deterministic, validated tools, treats model and report as one cross-referenced thing (renames propagate, broken bindings are found and fixed, unused fields are provable), and works on the .pbix files you actually have, not just PBIP folders.

Requirements

• Windows x64 (the engine drives the Analysis Services client libraries and, for live-model work, Power BI Desktop)
• Power BI Desktop - needed for live model editing, bulk refresh, bake, and the engine-backed offline .pbix tools; report-layer and file-level tools work without it
• Node.js 16+ to install via npx (below), or the .NET 8 SDK to build from source

Install

One command (recommended) - no .NET SDK needed. Add this to your MCP client's config (Claude Code / Claude Desktop .mcp.json, Cursor, etc.):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "super-bi": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "powerbi-pbix-mcp"]
    }
  }
}

The first launch downloads the self-contained engine SuperBiMcp.exe (~109 MB) from the latest release, verifies its SHA-256, and caches it under ~/.powerbi-pbix-mcp/; later launches reuse the cache. Set SUPERBI_MCP_EXE to an existing SuperBiMcp.exe to skip the download.

Prefer a plain binary? Download SuperBiMcp-win-x64.zip from the release, extract, and point your client's command straight at SuperBiMcp.exe.

Build from source (needs the .NET 8 SDK):

git clone https://github.com/cyphonica/powerbi-pbix-mcp
cd powerbi-pbix-mcp
dotnet build src/SuperBiMcp.csproj -c Release

then register the built DLL with "command": "dotnet", "args": ["<absolute path>/src/bin/Release/net8.0/SuperBiMcp.dll"].

Then ask your agent to open a .pbix and get to work. docs/automation-capabilities/GENERATED-TOOL-INDEX.md lists every tool; regenerate it any time with SuperBiMcp capability-map.

CLI modes

The same binary is also a headless factory:

Command	What it does
SuperBiMcp build job.json	Headless report build from a declarative manifest (single file or batch/glob)
SuperBiMcp refresh <path-or-glob>	Bulk-refresh .pbix files through Power BI Desktop, one at a time, saving each
SuperBiMcp scaffold spec.json out/	In-memory model build to a complete PBIP (TMDL) - no Desktop needed
SuperBiMcp bake pbip/ out/	Deploy + refresh a scaffolded model and produce the populated binary DataModel
SuperBiMcp materialize <solutionId>	Turn a solution spec + sample data into a starter .pbix (bring your own solutions/ catalog - not bundled)
SuperBiMcp sentinel-diff before.json after.json	CI integrity gate over two model snapshots
SuperBiMcp capability-map --check	Docs drift gate - fails when the committed tool index no longer matches the code
SuperBiMcp jobs list	Inspect the durable job queue used to serialise heavy Desktop work
SuperBiMcp templates	Dump the 300 built-in starting-point templates

Testing

dotnet test tests/SuperBiMcp.Tests/SuperBiMcp.Tests.csproj -c Release

A handful of live-connector smoke tests skip unless you provide credentials via DAXTEST_* environment variables. Set SUPERBI_TEST_SCRATCH to move test scratch space off your system drive.

Environment variables

Variable	Purpose
SUPERBI_PROTECTED_PATHS	;-separated directories the DataMashup writer refuses to touch (fence off live folders)
SUPERBI_TEST_SCRATCH	Scratch root for the test suite (defaults to the system temp dir)
SUPERBI_PBIX_SAVER	Command template that turns a refreshed PBIP into a populated .pbix (see src/Materialize.cs)
SUPERBI_AS_SERVER	Analysis Services instance for bake (defaults to an ephemeral private engine)
DAXOPS_PBI_TOKEN / DAXOPS_XMLA_ENDPOINT / DAXOPS_XMLA_CATALOG	Power BI Service / XMLA connectivity for the service-side tools

License

Source-available under the Functional Source License, FSL-1.1-ALv2 (see LICENSE.md).

Use it freely for anything internal, personal, educational, or for client/consulting work. You may not offer it, or a product substantially built on it, as a competing commercial product or hosted service. Each release automatically becomes Apache 2.0 two years after publication.

This is a curated public mirror of a private development tree; history starts at the first public release and updates land as versioned drops.

Acknowledgements

See NOTICE.md for bundled third-party assets and rule-set attributions.