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Info!

those interested in this project might also be interested in this follow-up project, tabular-mcp, which allows running DAX queries against a local PowerBI model. support is highly appreciated !

PBIXRay MCP Server

A Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for PBIXRay.

This MCP server exposes the capabilities of PBIXRay as tools and resources for LLM clients to interact with Power BI (.pbix) files.

Features

• Loading and analyzing PBIX files
• Data model exploration
  • Listing tables in the model
  • Retrieving model metadata
  • Checking model size
  • Getting model statistics
  • Getting comprehensive model summary
• Query language access
  • Viewing Power Query (M) code
  • Accessing M Parameters
  • Exploring DAX calculated tables
  • Viewing DAX measures
  • Examining DAX calculated columns
• Data structure analysis
  • Retrieving schema information
  • Analyzing table relationships
  • Accessing table contents with pagination

The list of tools is configurable, so you can choose which tools you want to make available to the MCP client. This is useful if you don't use certain functionality or if you don't want to expose sensitive information.

Tools

Tool	Category	Description
load_pbix_file	Core	Load a Power BI (.pbix) file for analysis
get_tables	Model	List all tables in the model
get_metadata	Model	Get metadata about the Power BI configuration
get_power_query	Query	Display all M/Power Query code used for data transformation
get_m_parameters	Query	Display all M Parameters values
get_model_size	Model	Get the model size in bytes
get_dax_tables	Query	View DAX calculated tables
get_dax_measures	Query	Access DAX measures with filtering by table or measure name
get_dax_columns	Query	Access calculated column DAX expressions with filtering options
get_schema	Structure	Get details about the data model schema and column types
get_relationships	Structure	Get the details about the data model relationships
get_table_contents	Data	Retrieve the contents of a specified table with pagination
get_statistics	Model	Get statistics about the model with optional filtering
get_model_summary	Model	Get a comprehensive summary of the current Power BI model

Usage

WSL (Recommended)

Add the server configuration to your client configuration file. For example, for Claude Desktop:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "pbixray": {
      "command": "wsl.exe",
      "args": [
        "bash",
        "-c",
        "source ~/dev/pbixray-mcp/venv/bin/activate && python ~/dev/pbixray-mcp/src/pbixray_server.py"
      ]
    }
  }
}

WSL Path conversion (Claude Project instructions for instance)

When using the PBIXRay MCP Server in WSL with Claude Desktop on Windows, you need to be aware of path differences when loading PBIX files. Windows paths (like C:\Users\name\file.pbix) cannot be directly accessed in WSL. Let your AI assistant know how to convert between pats by adding "Note that mcp server is running in wsl. Windows paths (like C:\Users\name\file.pbix) cannot be directly accessed in WSL. Instead, use WSL paths when referencing files: Windows: C:\Users\name\Downloads\file.pbix" WSL: /mnt/c/Users/name/Downloads/file.pbix" to project instructions or similar.

Command Line Options

The server supports several command line options:

• --disallow [tool_names]: Disable specific tools for security reasons
• --max-rows N: Set maximum number of rows returned (default: 100)
• --page-size N: Set default page size for paginated results (default: 20)

Command-line options can be added as needed in config json:

{
 "mcpServers": {
   "pbixray": {
     "command": "wsl.exe",
     "args": [
       "bash",
       "-c",
        "source ~/dev/pbixray-mcp/venv/bin/activate && python ~/dev/pbixray-mcp/src/pbixray_server.py --max-rows 100 --page-size 50 --disallow get_power_query"
      ],
      "env": {}
    }
  }
}

Query Options

Tools support additional parameters for filtering and pagination:

Filtering by Name

Tools like get_dax_measures, get_dax_columns, get_schema and others support filtering by specific names:

# Get measures from a specific table
get_dax_measures(table_name="Sales")

# Get a specific measure
get_dax_measures(table_name="Sales", measure_name="Total Sales")

Pagination for Large Tables

The get_table_contents tool supports pagination to handle large tables efficiently:

# Get first page of Customer table (default 20 rows per page)
get_table_contents(table_name="Customer")

# Get second page with 50 rows per page
get_table_contents(table_name="Customer", page=2, page_size=50)

Development and testing

You can install PBIXRay MCP Server:

pip install pbixray-mcp-server

Development Installation

For developers working on the project:

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/username/pbixray-mcp.git
   cd pbixray-mcp
   

2. Install in development mode:

   pip install -e .
   

3. If installing from source, create a virtual environment and install dependencies:

   python -m venv venv
   source venv/bin/activate  # On Windows: venv\Scripts\activate
   pip install mcp pbixray numpy
   

Testing with Sample Files

The repository includes sample files and test scripts to help you get started:

# Test with sample AdventureWorks Sales.pbix file in demo/ folder
python tests/test_with_sample.py

# Try the interactive demo
python examples/demo.py

# For isolated tests of specific features
python test_pagination.py
python test_metadata_fix.py

The test scripts will help you understand how to interact with the server using the sample PBIX files provided in the demo/ directory.

Development Mode

To test the server during development, use the MCP Inspector:

# Activate your environment first
source venv/bin/activate

# Run the MCP Inspector
mcp dev src/pbixray_server.py

This starts an interactive session where you can call tools and test responses.

Project Structure

pbixray-mcp/
├── README.md            - This file
├── INSTALLATION.md      - Detailed installation instructions
├── src/                 - Source code
│   ├── __init__.py
│   └── pbixray_server.py
├── tests/               - Test scripts
│   ├── __init__.py
│   ├── conftest.py
│   ├── test_server.py
│   └── test_with_sample.py
├── examples/            - Example scripts and configs
│   ├── demo.py
│   └── config/
├── demo/                - Sample PBIX files
│   ├── README.md
│   └── AdventureWorks Sales.pbix
└── docs/                - Additional documentation
    └── ROADMAP.md

Contributions

Contributions are much welcomed!

Credits

• Hugoberry - Original PBIXRay library
• rusiaaman - WCGW (This MCP was fully written by Claude using wcgw)

License (claude insists on adding these)

MIT License