powerbi-model

Skill: Inspect and Modify the Semantic Model

Trigger

Activate when the user wants to inspect tables / measures / relationships, asks "what's in the model", wants to add a measure, or requests an overview of the data model.

Prerequisites

Requires an active connection — run pbi-agent connect first if any command fails with "no connection".

Commands

# Model overview (name, tables, measures, relationships counts)
pbi-agent model info

# List all tables
pbi-agent model tables

# List all measures across the model
pbi-agent model measures

# Filter measures to a single table
pbi-agent model measures --table Sales

# List relationships
pbi-agent model relationships

# Add a new measure (replaces if the name exists)
pbi-agent model add-measure "Total Sales" "SUM(Sales[Amount])" --table Sales

# Add a measure with a format string
pbi-agent model add-measure "YoY Growth" "[Total Sales] / [PY Sales] - 1" \
    --table Sales --format-string "0.0%"

# Pin an SSAS port (skip auto-detect)
pbi-agent model info --port 56123

Guidance

• add-measure overwrites an existing measure with the same name — confirm with the user before replacing.
• Table names are case-sensitive; verify with pbi-agent model tables before --table references.
• For complex DAX with VAR/RETURN, validate via pbi-agent dax validate before calling add-measure.
• To inspect a single measure's DAX expression, use pbi-agent dax query "EVALUATE FILTER(INFO.MEASURES(), [Name] = \"My Measure\")".

Measure Create Syntax Reference

Two CLIs can add measures; their argument forms are different:

# pbi-agent (this tool) — positional name, then DAX, then --table flag
pbi-agent model add-measure "Total Revenue" "SUM(Sales[Amount])" --table Sales

# pbi-cli (if installed separately) — name positional, -e for expression, -t for table
pbi measure create "Total Revenue" -e "SUM(Sales[Amount])" -t Sales

The three-positional form pbi measure create TableName "Name" "DAX" is wrong for pbi-cli — Click rejects it. Always use -e/-t named flags with pbi measure create.