Power BI CLI tools: Tabular Editor, ALM Toolkit, fabric-cicd

Power BI has no single CLI. Three tools cover the CI, authoring, and comparison roles.

Tabular Editor CLI

Tabular Editor 3 ships a command-line mode that runs scripts, BPA rules, and XMLA operations. The binary is called TabularEditor.exe on Windows; a .NET build runs on Linux and macOS.

Run BPA rules

./TabularEditor.exe `
  ./sales_model.SemanticModel `
  -A "./BPA Rules.json" `
  -V

• -A <file> loads a BPA rule file and runs it against the model.
• -V fails the process with a non-zero exit code if any error-level rule is violated.

Exit code is 0 on success, non-zero on BPA failures or model errors. Use in CI as a gate.

Run a script

./TabularEditor.exe `
  ./sales_model.SemanticModel `
  -S "./scripts/add_yoy_measures.csx"

• -S <file> runs a C# script against the model. Script changes are persisted unless you add -P false.

Scripts are the idiomatic way to make structural changes to a shared semantic model:

// add_yoy_measures.csx
foreach (var m in Model.AllMeasures.Where(m => m.Name.StartsWith("Total "))) {
    var yoy = m.Table.AddMeasure(m.Name.Replace("Total ", "") + " YoY");
    yoy.Expression = $@"
        VAR Current = [{m.Name}]
        VAR Prior   = CALCULATE([{m.Name}], SAMEPERIODLASTYEAR('dim_date'[date]))
        RETURN DIVIDE(Current - Prior, Prior)
    ";
    yoy.FormatString = "0.00%;-0.00%;0%";
}

XMLA deploy

./TabularEditor.exe `
  ./sales_model.SemanticModel `
  -D "powerbi://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/workspace-dev" "sales_model" `
  -O "Preserve=false"

• -D <endpoint> <database> deploys to an XMLA endpoint.
• -O sets deployment options.

Prefer fabric-cicd for routine deploys; reach for Tabular Editor's -D for one-off surgical deploys.

Help

./TabularEditor.exe -h

Full option list. Read it once; come back when you need a flag.

fabric-cicd

Microsoft-published Python package for deploying PBIP artifacts to Fabric workspaces.

Install

pip install fabric-cicd

Validate

fabric-cicd validate --config config.yml

Checks that the PBIP folder structure is correct, workspace IDs in config exist, and environment parameters substitute cleanly.

Deploy

fabric-cicd deploy --target dev --config config.yml
fabric-cicd deploy --target staging --config config.yml
fabric-cicd deploy --target prod --config config.yml

Deploys semantic models and reports to the named target's workspace. Auth via the Azure CLI's active context (typically OIDC from CI).

Config

The config defines workspaces, items (models, reports), and per-target parameters:

workspaces:
  dev:     { id: "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000001" }
  staging: { id: "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000002" }
  prod:    { id: "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000003" }

items:
  - name: sales_model
    type: SemanticModel
    path: ./sales_model.SemanticModel
  - name: sales_report
    type: Report
    path: ./sales_report.Report

environment_parameters:
  dev:
    - name: warehouse_id
      value: "abc123"
  prod:
    - name: warehouse_id
      value: "ghi789"

See the CI/CD guide for the full pipeline.

ALM Toolkit CLI

Compares two tabular models, generates selective deployment scripts.

Compare two models

./AlmToolkit.exe compare `
  --source "Data Source=powerbi://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/staging;Initial Catalog=sales_model" `
  --target "Data Source=powerbi://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/prod;Initial Catalog=sales_model" `
  --output diff.txt

Produces a diff of every object (tables, measures, relationships, roles) between source and target.

Selective deploy

./AlmToolkit.exe deploy `
  --source ... --target ... `
  --select "measure:Total Revenue"

Deploys only the named object, preserving the rest.

Use for surgical prod fixes: a single measure definition needs to change, you do not want a full model redeploy, and you do not want to lose parallel PRs that have been merged since the last deploy.

Power BI REST API via curl

When you need a thing neither tool exposes, hit the REST API directly.

Auth: get a bearer token

TOKEN=$(curl -s -X POST \
  "https://login.microsoftonline.com/$TENANT_ID/oauth2/v2.0/token" \
  -d "grant_type=client_credentials" \
  -d "client_id=$CLIENT_ID" \
  -d "client_secret=$CLIENT_SECRET" \
  -d "scope=https://analysis.windows.net/powerbi/api/.default" \
  | jq -r '.access_token')

List workspaces

curl -s "https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" | jq '.value[] | {id, name}'

List datasets in a workspace

curl -s "https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/$WORKSPACE_ID/datasets" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" | jq '.value[] | {id, name, configuredBy}'

Trigger refresh

curl -s -X POST \
  "https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/$WORKSPACE_ID/datasets/$DATASET_ID/refreshes" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"type": "full", "commitMode": "transactional"}'

Refresh history

curl -s "https://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/groups/$WORKSPACE_ID/datasets/$DATASET_ID/refreshes" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" | jq '.value[] | {status, startTime, endTime}'

When to use which tool

See also

• CI/CD for Power BI — fabric-cicd in context.
• Enhanced Refresh — what the REST API refresh endpoint looks like in production.
• PBIP + Git — the source format these tools consume.