DashMCP PBI

Generate Power BI (.pbit) dashboards from CSV files or live SQL databases — locally, on your own machine, in seconds.

DashMCP profiles your data, designs a sensible dashboard layout (KPI cards + charts + filters), compiles it to a Power BI template, and writes the result to disk. Open the .pbit in Power BI Desktop and you have a working report.

Highlights

• CSV upload — drop a single .csv, get a .pbit. No Power BI required to generate it.

• Live SQL sources — SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Oracle. The generated .pbit queries the database on open; credentials are never embedded.

• Plain-English prompts — describe what you want ("bar chart company by revenue, line of growth over year"). Powered by Groq (Llama 3.3 70B) — bring your own API key. Without a key, DashMCP still produces a sensible default dashboard from a CSV profile; the prompt is ignored.

• Layout from a reference image — drop in a screenshot of a dashboard you like. DashMCP reads the structure (card count, chart types, filter panel) and applies it to the generated layout, then adopts the color palette as the report theme.

• Multiple chart types — bar, column, line, area, pie, donut, scatter, table. KPI cards. Slicers.

• Browser UI — runs on http://127.0.0.1:8000/. Local-only by default.

• MCP server — exposes the same tools to Claude Desktop over stdio for "/" prompts inside Claude.

Related MCP server: Power BI Report MCP Server

Quick start

# 1. Clone
git clone https://github.com/a-negi/dash_mcp.git
cd dash_mcp

# 2. Install Python deps (creates .venv)
.\setup_local.ps1

# 3. Install pbi-tools.core somewhere on PATH or at C:\pbi-tools\
#    Download: https://github.com/pbi-tools/pbi-tools/releases

# 4. Start the local server
.\run_api.ps1

Open http://127.0.0.1:8000/ in your browser.

If you'd rather use DashMCP inside Claude Desktop, see LOCAL_SETUP.md for the stdio MCP setup.

The browser UI

The downloaded .pbit opens in Power BI Desktop, prompts for any data-source credentials, and renders the dashboard.

How prompts work

DashMCP always runs the deterministic dashboard builder (KPI cards, headline bar/line chart, donut for low-cardinality dims, second "Breakdowns" page when the dataset is rich). On top of that, if you supply an LLM key, your prompt is interpreted and additional visuals are appended.

What the LLM sees:

• Your prompt

• Column names + roles (measure / dimension)

• Column semantic types (temporal, geographic, categorical, etc.)

• Visuals the deterministic builder already produced (so it doesn't duplicate them)

What it does NOT see: any of your data rows.

The model returns a JSON list of chart specs (type, x-axis column, y-axis column, title); DashMCP validates each spec against the column profile and adds the ones that pass.

The response header X-DashMCP-Parser tells you which path ran for any given generate (llm:groq, llm:openai, llm:qwen, llm:<provider>-empty, no-key, or deterministic-only). The UI shows this under each "Report ready" message.

SQL data sources

DashMCP ships with lazy driver imports — the base install works for CSV-only use. Install drivers only for the databases you need:

# SQL Server (also needs the Microsoft ODBC Driver 17 or 18, installed system-wide)
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install pyodbc

# PostgreSQL
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install psycopg2-binary

# Oracle (thin mode - no Oracle client install required)
.\.venv\Scripts\python.exe -m pip install oracledb

In the UI, pick the source kind from the Data source dropdown. DashMCP:

1. Connects with the credentials you supply.

2. Pulls SELECT TOP 1000 (or LIMIT 1000) to profile column types, cardinality, and roles.

3. Generates a Power Query M expression that Power BI Desktop will use to fetch the full dataset live.

4. Compiles everything into a .pbit.

The credentials never make it into the .pbit file — Power BI Desktop will prompt for sign-in on first open. This is the standard Power BI Template behavior.

Example: SQL Server

Example: free-form query

Paste a SELECT (with joins, filters, anything) into the Or: SELECT query box. DashMCP will profile the first 1000 rows of the result and target the same query in the generated M.

AI assistance

What gets sent to the model:

• Your prompt

• The list of column names + their inferred roles

• The list of visuals already generated by the deterministic builder

• Nothing else. Your data rows never leave your machine.

The key is cached in the browser tab's sessionStorage so you don't have to re-paste it on every generate. It's wiped when the tab closes.

For local Qwen, choose Local Qwen 2.5 (Ollama) in the provider dropdown. The Windows installer bundles a CPU-only Ollama runtime and will start it when DashMCP launches; qwen2.5:3b is pulled on first use if it is missing, so the first Qwen generation can take a few minutes and needs internet access. DashMCP calls http://127.0.0.1:11434 by default; override with QWEN_OLLAMA_URL or OLLAMA_HOST if your Ollama server runs elsewhere.

If you skip the key, DashMCP falls back to the deterministic dashboard builder only. Your prompt has no effect in that case — the dashboard is built purely from the column profile.

Style reference image

Drop any PNG/JPG (a screenshot of a dashboard you like, a brand mockup, a Tableau page). DashMCP runs two extractions in parallel:

Layout extraction (Groq Vision, requires Groq key) Reads the structural layout of the reference dashboard:

• How many KPI/metric cards are visible → used as the KPI card count in the generated report

• Which chart types are present (bar, column, line, area, donut, etc.) → influences chart type selection

• Whether a right-side filter/slicer panel exists → adds or omits a slicer panel

• Whether the KPI cards are in a left-column rail or a top-row grid → picks the matching layout template

Palette extraction (Groq Vision, or local Pillow fallback) Extracts the color scheme:

• Primary, secondary, and accent colors

• Page canvas background

• Chart series palette (8-color rotation)

The layout extraction requires a GROQ_API_KEY. If no key is available, DashMCP still samples colors locally with Pillow and the layout falls back to the data-driven default.

API endpoints

All endpoints are local-only (127.0.0.1:8000).

For Claude Desktop integration over stdio, point the launcher at run_mcp_stdio.ps1 — see LOCAL_SETUP.md.

Windows installer (single .exe for end users)

A double-clickable installer is available for users who don't want to run setup_local.ps1. It bundles Python, all dependencies, the FastAPI app, and pbi-tools.core into one .exe. See installer/README.md for the build process. End-user install flow:

1. Download DashMCP-PBI-Setup-1.0.3.exe (or the latest version).

2. Run it (admin required — installs into Program Files).

3. Start Menu → DashMCP PBI. The server starts and your browser opens automatically.

4. User data (generated reports, sources, sessions) lives at %LOCALAPPDATA%\DashMCP\ and survives reinstall/uninstall.

Power BI Desktop External Tool button

Optional. Adds a DashMCP PBI button to the External Tools ribbon in Power BI Desktop. See EXTERNAL_TOOL_SETUP.md.

Some tenants block External Tools registration via Fabric tenant policy. If the ribbon button doesn't appear after registering, the browser UI still works — just open http://127.0.0.1:8000/ directly.

Architecture (one screen)

                ┌──────────────┐
   CSV / SQL → ┤ data_profiler / data_sources ┤ → DatasetProfile
                └──────────────┘
                        │
                        ▼
                  build_intent_from_profile      (deterministic)
                        │
                        │  + prompt parser (regex OR LLM)
                        │  + image layout hint extractor  (Claude Vision)
                        │  + image palette extractor      (Claude Vision / Pillow)
                        ▼
                  ReportIntent (Pydantic)
                        │
                        ▼
                  build_bim_from_profile  →  semantic model (BIM JSON)
                  build_m_for_source      →  Power Query M
                  build_layout_from_intent →  report layout (visuals + theme)
                        │
                        ▼
                  pbi-tools.core compile  →  .pbit
                  inject_data_mashup       (DataMashup binary)
                  inject_report_layout     (Report/Layout)
                        │
                        ▼
                      .pbit file

Key files:

• main.py — FastAPI app, endpoints, static UI mount.

• orchestrator.py — pipelines (pipeline_from_csv, pipeline_from_source).

• data_profiler.py — CSV profiler.

• data_sources.py — DB profilers + M generators for MSSQL / Postgres / Oracle.

• auto_intent.py — deterministic intent + layout builder, regex prompt parser.

• llm_intent.py — LLM-driven prompt parser (Groq + OpenAI).

• image_analyzer.py — palette extraction and layout hint extraction from reference images.

• file_writer.py — writes the project tree, injects DataMashup + Report/Layout.

• mcp_server.py — MCP tools for Claude Desktop.

• static/index.html — browser UI.

Troubleshooting

.pbit won't open / "An error occurred while opening the file". Usually a stale generation in generated_reports/. Delete and regenerate. If it persists, check the server logs — pbi-tools.core errors usually show up there.

External Tools button doesn't appear in Power BI Desktop. Most often a Fabric tenant policy. See the troubleshooting section in EXTERNAL_TOOL_SETUP.md.

LLM call fails silently. When the LLM call errors or returns an empty visuals list, DashMCP falls back to the deterministic builder and surfaces llm:<provider>-empty in the X-DashMCP-Parser response header (visible in the UI status message). Double-check the key value, the provider dropdown, and that openai is installed (pip install openai) if you picked OpenAI.

SQL profiling fails with "pyodbc/psycopg2/oracledb is required". Install the relevant driver into the venv (see SQL data sources).

Generation succeeds but the dashboard looks plain blue, not like my reference image. The local Pillow palette extractor is more conservative than the Groq vision path. If you have a GROQ_API_KEY set, the vision path gives better color results. Or open the resulting .pbit and tweak the theme manually.

Reference image supplied but the layout doesn't match it. Layout extraction requires a GROQ_API_KEY — without one, only colors are sampled and the layout falls back to the data-driven default. Check that the key is set and that the reference image clearly shows the dashboard structure (card tiles, chart panels, filter sidebar).

Project state

This is the local-first incarnation of DashMCP. Railway deployment is not the supported path right now — everything is designed to run on your machine, talk to local CSVs and databases, and write .pbit files into generated_reports/.

The roadmap (see .claude/plans/) covers:

• Phase 1: SQL connectors (✅ this release).

• Phase 2: joined multi-table models with auto-relationship inference.

• Phase 3: read the model out of an open Power BI Desktop session via a .NET helper.