PowerBI Analyst MCP Server

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claude mcp add powerbi-analyst -- uvx powerbi-analyst-mcp
README.md

Ask Claude to analyse your Power BI data. Get answers — not context-window crashes.

Power BI Analyst MCP

Ask Claude to analyse your Power BI data. Get answers — not context-window crashes.

Connect Claude (or any MCP client) to your Power BI semantic models. Explore tables and measures, run DAX queries, and work with real results — even across datasets with tens of thousands of rows. Large query results are automatically saved to a local file and paged to the agent on demand, so your AI session stays fast and focused no matter how much data you pull.

Everything runs on your machine. Your data never passes through a third-party relay.


What becomes possible

The analytics bottleneck has never really been data access — Power BI already gives people access. The bottleneck is translation: the skilled, time-consuming work of turning data into a decision. This server moves that translation to an LLM.

Compound reasoning across your entire model A human analyst runs one query, reads the result, forms a hypothesis, runs another query. This serialises over hours. An agent can run twenty queries in sequence — each informed by the last — synthesise across all of them, and deliver a reasoned conclusion in minutes. Ask "what's driving the margin decline in EMEA?" and Claude will explore measures, drill into markets, check time trends, isolate the outlier, and explain it — without you directing each step.

Natural language analytics for everyone Any stakeholder can ask a data question and get a real answer backed by live DAX — without knowing what DAX is, without filing a ticket, without waiting. The translation layer that used to require a trained analyst runs on demand.

Proactive anomaly detection Run Claude on a schedule against your key measures. It queries the data, compares to prior periods, and flags anything outside expected ranges in plain English — before anyone has to open a dashboard to find out something went wrong.

Self-documenting semantic models "List every measure in this dataset and explain what it calculates." Claude explores the schema and produces a data dictionary — useful for onboarding, governance, and anyone trying to understand what a model actually contains.

Large datasets, handled automatically Power BI queries can return tens of thousands of rows. Returning all of that inline would consume most of an LLM's context window and crash the session. This server saves large results to a local CSV and gives the agent a compact summary — row count, column names, 5-row preview — then lets it page through the file on demand. You get the full dataset. The AI session stays lean.

Query history that compounds over time Every successful DAX query is logged locally in a JSONL audit trail — what the user asked, the DAX that was generated, the columns returned, and where the CSV was saved. In the next session, the agent searches this history to find relevant prior work: reusable DAX patterns, previously computed result files, and context from earlier analyses. The more you use it, the faster and smarter it gets — and you always have an audit trail of where every number came from.

Your data stays on your machine Queries, results, and tokens never pass through a cloud relay. The server runs locally, authenticates via the same OAuth device code flow as the Power BI web app, and stores tokens in your OS's native secure store (Keychain / DPAPI / LibSecret).


How it compares to Microsoft's official MCP servers

Microsoft publishes two MCP servers for Power BI. This one is different in purpose and architecture from both.

This server Microsoft Remote MCP Microsoft Modeling MCP
Purpose Query and analyse existing models Query existing models Build and modify models
Runs Locally on your machine Microsoft's cloud infrastructure Locally (Power BI Desktop)
Data path Direct to Power BI REST API Via Microsoft's MCP relay Local XMLA
Auth OAuth device code (delegated) O

Tools (3)

list_workspacesList all Power BI workspaces accessible to the user.
list_datasetsList datasets within a specific Power BI workspace.
execute_daxExecute a DAX query against a specific Power BI dataset.

Configuration

claude_desktop_config.json
{"mcpServers": {"powerbi-analyst": {"command": "uvx", "args": ["powerbi-analyst-mcp"]}}}

Try it

List all my Power BI workspaces and tell me which ones contain sales data.
Run a DAX query to calculate the total revenue for the current quarter in the 'Sales' dataset.
What is driving the margin decline in EMEA? Please explore the measures and drill into the data.
List every measure in the 'Finance' dataset and explain what it calculates.
Compare the 'Total Revenue' measure against the prior period and flag any anomalies.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are the key features of PowerBI Analyst MCP?

Direct integration with Power BI semantic models via REST API. Automatic local CSV saving for large query results to prevent context window overflow. Local query history logging for auditability and cross-session reuse. Secure OAuth device code authentication with local token storage. Automated data dictionary generation from semantic models.

What can I use PowerBI Analyst MCP for?

Performing compound reasoning across multiple DAX queries to diagnose business performance trends. Enabling non-technical stakeholders to get data-backed answers without writing DAX. Automating anomaly detection by scheduling Claude to compare key measures against prior periods. Generating documentation for complex semantic models to assist with team onboarding. Analyzing large datasets that exceed standard LLM context limits by using local file paging.

How do I install PowerBI Analyst MCP?

Install PowerBI Analyst MCP by running: uvx powerbi-analyst-mcp

What MCP clients work with PowerBI Analyst MCP?

PowerBI Analyst MCP works with any MCP-compatible client including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and other editors with MCP support.

Turn this server into reusable context

Keep PowerBI Analyst MCP docs, env vars, and workflow notes in Conare so your agent carries them across sessions.

Need the old visual installer? Open Conare IDE.
Open Conare