pbi-claudecode-toolkit

pbi-claudecode-toolkit

A Claude Code plugin that packages everything needed to build, debug, and ship Power BI .pbip projects via pbi-cli — playbook, slash commands, automated bug-prevention hooks, brand theme, and a from-scratch setup doc.

What's inside

Component	What it does
Skill: powerbi-build	The full playbook for .pbip authoring — Desktop save discipline, build order, theme rules, recovery patterns. Auto-loaded by Claude when you discuss Power BI work.
Slash command: /pbi-verify-setup	Non-destructive check of every prerequisite (Python, pipx, pbi-cli, pywin32, Power BI Desktop). Prints PASS/FAIL with fix commands.
Slash command: /pbi-strip-filterconfig	Manually scan & fix the "tableEx with no rows" bug in an existing dashboard.
Slash command: /pbi-handoff	Deliver the close-without-save / reopen handoff message verbatim.
Hook: strip-filterconfig	Auto-runs after any pbi visual bind Bash command. Strips destructive auto-injected filterConfig blocks before they reach disk.
Hook: fix-theme-path	Auto-runs after any edit/write to report.json. Restores .json extension on theme paths if Power BI Desktop stripped it.
Theme: GaiaHerbs.json	Reference brand theme (Gaia Herbs palette + Calibri/Georgia typography). Import natively via Desktop's View → Themes → Browse.
Doc: Setup-pbi-cli.md	From-scratch setup for a new Windows 11 user — installs Python, pipx, Power BI Desktop, pbi-cli, pywin32.

Install

This plugin is its own marketplace (single-plugin repo). To install:

/plugin marketplace add <git-url-of-this-repo>
/plugin install pbi-claudecode-toolkit@pbi-claudecode-marketplace

After install, run /pbi-verify-setup to confirm the underlying pbi-cli toolchain is ready. If it isn't, follow docs/Setup-pbi-cli.md.

How to use

Daily workflow:

1. Open Power BI Desktop with the target .pbip. Wait for the model to load.
2. In a terminal, cd to the project folder.
3. Open Claude Code in that folder.
4. Ask Claude to build/edit something. The powerbi-build skill auto-loads.
5. When Claude finishes a session, it'll deliver the close-without-save / reopen handoff message — follow it.

The hooks run silently during step 4. You won't see them unless they trigger; if they do, they print a one-line notice to stderr indicating what they fixed.

What this plugin prevents

The hooks specifically guard against these bugs caught during real .pbip builds:

1. filterConfig auto-injection on tableEx visuals — pbi-cli (3.10.x) appends "type": "Advanced" filters with no conditions when binding measures to a tableEx, filtering the visual to empty. Auto-stripped on every pbi visual bind.
2. Theme path .json extension stripped after save — Power BI Desktop reformats resourcePackages.items[].path on save, breaking theme resolution and .pbix export. Auto-restored after every report.json write.

Caveats / known limitations

• The hooks need Python in PATH. That's a prerequisite for pbi-cli itself, so if Step 1 of the setup doc passed, this is satisfied.
• The brand theme is a starting point. It styles card, kpi, lineChart, barChart, tableEx, pivotTable. For Waterfall, Donut, Treemap, Pie, Decomposition Tree, and other visual types, the theme falls back to defaults (which still use the Gaia palette via dataColors).
• Setup-pbi-cli.md assumes Windows 11 22H2+. Older Windows or non-Windows OSes need different package managers; the playbook itself remains correct.
• The plugin is opinionated about hooks always being on. If you want to disable a hook temporarily without uninstalling the plugin, comment out the relevant entry in your local ~/.claude/settings.json after the plugin merges them in (or run /plugins disable pbi-claudecode-toolkit).

Updating the playbook

When you discover new failure modes, edit skills/powerbi-build/SKILL.md directly. The skill is plain markdown; commit and push. Existing installations pick up the change on git pull of the marketplace repo.

For new bug-prevention hooks, add a script to hooks/ and a matcher to hooks/hooks.json.

Layout