Horizun PBI MCP
Build and fix Power BI reports by describing what you want.
Ask in plain language; the server runs the DAX, edits the model, writes the
report pages — and checks its own work afterwards.
No licence, no API key, no paid plan
It runs as a local process on your own Windows machine, so the free apps are
enough: install it in ChatGPT Desktop or Claude Desktop on their free
tiers and start asking. No OpenAI or Anthropic API key, no subscription, no
server of ours in the middle — and Power BI Desktop is free as well. One click
installs it and it prepares its own runtime: no Python, no JSON to edit.
v2.1.1 · 139 tools · Windows · ChatGPT Desktop Free · Claude Desktop Free · Claude Code · Codex
New to the project? Start with what this Power BI MCP is, when to use it, and
what it deliberately does not do.
Install
No repository clone, manual DLL download or .mcp.json editing is required.
Pick the line that matches you.
ChatGPT Desktop Free
Run the verified one-paste installer from docs/INSTALL.md,
restart ChatGPT Desktop, then open Plugins → Personal and install
Horizun PBI MCP. No OpenAI API key is required.
Claude Desktop Free
Download the .mcpb from the
latest release
and double-click it. Claude Desktop supplies the bootstrap runtime; no Claude
Code install or JSON editing is required. It will say the extension is not
verified by Anthropic — what it says about anything installed outside its own
directory — and let you continue.
Claude Code
claude plugin marketplace add HorizunGroup/horizun-pbi-mcp
claude plugin install horizun-pbi-mcp@horizun
Codex
codex plugin marketplace add HorizunGroup/horizun-pbi-mcp
Then open /plugins, pick the Horizun marketplace and install
horizun-pbi-mcp.
Desktop or Code?
Same server, same 139 tools, same local runtime — install both and they share
it. Pick by what you are doing: Claude Desktop to use Power BI, in chat,
one click, free tier. Claude Code to build — it adds the terminal, git
and your repo, and loads tool schemas on demand instead of all at once.
On a new PC, the verified one-paste installer prepares the
prerequisites without administrator rights. First setup takes a few minutes:
run pbi_install_status until ready, restart once, and confirm the 139 pbi_* tools appear.
Your first minute
- Open Power BI Desktop with any report.
- Ask: "List the Power BI models that are open and connect to the first one."
- Ask: "Run a read-only DAX query that returns revenue by month for this year."
If step 2 answers, everything works.
Things worth asking for
Audit this PBIP project and explain the highest-risk issues before changing anything.
This measure returns blank for December. Find out why.
Create a report page from this specification, validate it, and show me the layout.
Document every measure in the model and export it to Excel.
What it provides
| Area | Capabilities |
|---|
| Live model | Discover Desktop sessions, run DAX, inspect metadata, refresh, and manage measures through TOM |
| Semantic model | Read and edit TMDL tables, columns, measures, relationships, roles and calculation groups |
| Report authoring | Create pages and visuals, clone templates, arrange layouts, apply themes, bookmarks and interactions |
| Conversion | Convert .pbix to .pbip, migrate supported structures and validate the result |
| Quality | Audit models and reports, document schemas, detect broken references and normalize report structures |
| Delivery | Export verified PDF, Word, Excel and PowerPoint artifacts; ingest SharePoint data read-only |
See the tool catalog for all 139 tools and their risk
classifications.
Why it is safe to point at real work
- Local-first: Power BI Desktop communication stays on
localhost.
- No telemetry, and the MCP server needs no account.
- Project writes stay inside the active project directory.
- Every project write makes a backup and is re-read to confirm it landed.
- Destructive tools require
confirm=true.
- JSON writes are atomic; invalid JSON is never written over good JSON.
- Downloaded runtime components are version-pinned and SHA-256 verified.
- Logs go to stderr or files, so stdout stays a clean JSON-RPC channel.
Full guarantees and failure behavior: security model and
recovery guide. Report vulnerabilities privately as described
in SECURITY.md.
Requirements
- Windows 10 or 11.
- Python 3.10 or newer.
- Power BI Desktop — only for the live layer (DAX, refresh, capture, render checks).
- A
.pbip project with PBIR enabled, for report-file authoring.
- Node.js 20+ only for the optional Microsoft PBIR validator.
Claude Code, Codex and Power BI Desktop are external programs; this project does
not install them. Without Desktop the .pbip tools still work — the live tools
do not.
Known limits
- Power BI does not expose pages or visuals through its live local endpoint, so
those are edited in PBIR files while Desktop is safely closed.
mode="both" is disabled for dual live/disk writes: Desktop being open and a
PBIP project being safe to edit are mutually exclusive states.- The server does not publish to or refresh the Power BI Service.
- Three PBIR schemas referenced by Power BI are not published by Microsoft;
affected writes fail closed instead of guessing.
Documentation
Development
git clone https://github.com/HorizunGroup/horizun-pbi-mcp.git
cd horizun-pbi-mcp
python -m pip install -e .
python scripts/fetch_libs.py
python scripts/fetch_pbir_schemas.py
python scripts/doctor.py
Before opening a pull request:
python -m pytest -q
python scripts/doctor.py
python -m tests.contract_utils
The MCP contract is frozen and checked against tests/golden/tools_v1.json.
Real .pbix, .pbip, credentials, DLLs, outputs and backups are never
committed. See AGENTS.md for the repository invariants.
License
Apache License 2.0. See LICENSE and NOTICE.
MCP Registry
This package is the one published under the server name below. The registry
reads this line from the README of the PyPI package to confirm that whoever
publishes the metadata also owns the package, so it has to live here rather
than in .mcp/server.json alone.
mcp-name: io.github.HorizunGroup/horizun-pbi-mcp