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What is the Power BI Report Authoring skill?

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The Power BI Report Authoring skill (powerbi-report-authoring) is an AI-agent skill that enables natural-language authoring, modification, and validation of Power BI report definitions in the PBIR (Power BI Report) format used by PBIP (Power BI Project) files. It's distributed as part of the PowerBI authoring plugin in the Skills for Fabric marketplace — Microsoft's first-party catalog of agent skills for Microsoft Fabric — and is optimized for GitHub Copilot CLI with cross-tool compatibility for VS Code Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex/Jules, and Windsurf.

Combined with the Power BI MCP servers, it provides an end-to-end agentic authoring loop that spans semantic models, report layout, and live Power BI Desktop verification.

Choose this skill when an agent needs to create or modify the report layer (pages, visuals, filters, slicers, formatting, themes). For semantic model authoring (tables, columns, measures, DAX), use the Power BI Modeling MCP server. For data querying and insights, use the remote Power BI MCP server.

Common scenarios

The Report Authoring skill is ideal for AI agents working in editors such as GitHub Copilot in Visual Studio Code that need to make precise, schema-correct changes to Power BI reports.

Use cases:

  • Create a new report from an existing semantic model
  • Modify an existing report -Modernize an existing report with better designs

Example use cases:

  • Create a report with two pages where page 1 includes Cards for salient measures, Bar chart, Table bound to an existing semantic mode
  • Add a new page with a clustered column chart, KPI cards, and a date slicer bound to an existing semantic model.
  • Re-theme an existing report with a new dark theme, including dataColors, textClasses, and visualStyles updates.
  • Convert legacy card or matrix visuals to modern cardVisual and pivotTable visuals and reapply selector-based formatting.
  • Diagnose a visual rendering as an error icon or empty frame in Desktop and fix the underlying queryState or role bindings.

Companion skill: Power BI Report Design and Power BI Report Planner

For greenfield report builds, redesigns, or "make this look professional" requests, pair this skill with the Power BI Report Design skill. The design skill produces a structured design brief — archetype per page, layout variant, chart selection, color map, theme — that becomes the deterministic input to the Report Authoring skill.

For end-to-end guided report creation — requirements gathering, semantic model inspection, brief production, approval, and build — use the Power BI Report Planner skill. The planner orchestrates the full pipeline, calling this skill for all PBIR file mechanics and the Power BI Report Management skill for Fabric publishing.

You're starting from… Begin with
A locked design or an explicit edit request ("add a card showing [Total Sales]") This skill (Report Authoring)
A blank slate or design-shaped request ("design a sales dashboard", "what should this look like?") Report Design skill → hands off here
An existing report that needs visual rework Report Design skill for critique → hands off here
A new report that needs guided planning, requirements, and end-to-end build Report Planner skill → hands off here

All three skills ship in the same PowerBI authoring plugin and are designed to be installed together.

How it complements the Power BI MCP server and tools

Layer Tool Responsibility
Semantic model (tables, columns, measures, DAX) Power BI Modeling MCP server Create and update the data model
Data queries and insights Remote Power BI MCP server Generate and execute DAX
Report layer (PBIR/PBIP files) Power BI Report Authoring skill Edit pages, visuals, filters, formatting, themes
Live Desktop verification Power BI Desktop CLI (Desktop Bridge) Open, reload, status, screenshot
Greenfield planning and design Power BI Report Planner skill, Power BI Report Design skill Requirements, archetypes, layout, color, typography

A typical end-to-end agent flow combines these steps:

  1. Use the Modeling MCP server to ensure the semantic model has the tables, columns, and measures the report needs.
  2. Use the Report Authoring skill to edit PBIR files for pages, visuals, and formatting.
  3. Use validate-report to catch structural problems.
  4. Use the Power BI Desktop bridge to reload Desktop and capture screenshots.
  5. Delegate review to an independent design-reviewer pass and iterate until both validation and visual checks pass.

Note

You can also start with step 2 with an existing PBIP files.

Considerations

The Report Authoring skill works directly with JSON files on disk.

  • Support - The skill works only with PBIP files.
  • Source control - Commit a baseline before you allow the agent to modify PBIR files so you can revert changes.
  • Source of truth - The PBIR file is the source of truth. Save your manual changes in Power BI Desktop before you ask the agent to iterate on your report. If you have unsaved changes in Power BI Desktop and you ask the agent to iterate on your report, the agent fetches the version from PBIR and doesn't include your unsaved changes.
  • Legacy vs. modern visuals - Some visuals, including Q&A, Bing maps, and filled maps, will be deprecated soon. It is recommended to avoid prompting the agent to create these visuals.

Next steps

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