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Power BI visual project structure

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The best way to start creating a new Power BI visual is to use the Power BI visuals pbiviz tool.

To create a new visual, navigate to the directory you want the Power BI visual to reside in, and run the command:

pbiviz new <visual project name>

Running this command creates a Power BI visual folder that contains the following files:

project
├───.vscode
│   ├───launch.json
│   └───settings.json
├───assets
│   └───icon.png
├───node_modules
├───src
│   ├───settings.ts
│   └───visual.ts
├───style
│   └───visual.less
├───capabilities.json
├───package-lock.json
├───package.json
├───pbiviz.json
├───tsconfig.json
└───tslint.json

Folder and file description

This section provides information for each folder and file in the directory that the Power BI visuals pbiviz tool creates.

.vscode

This folder contains the VS Code project settings.

To configure your workspace, edit the .vscode/settings.json file.

For more information, see User and workspace settings.

assets

This folder contains the icon.png file.

The Power BI visuals tool uses this file as the new Power BI visual icon in the Power BI visualization pane. This icon must be a PNG file with dimensions 20 pixels by 20 pixels.

src

This folder contains the visual's source code.

In this folder, the Power BI visuals tool creates the following files:

  • visual.ts - The visual's main source code. Read about the Visual API.
  • settings.ts - The code of the visual's settings. The classes in the file provide an interface for defining your visual's properties.

style

This folder contains the visual.less file, which holds the visual's styles.

capabilities.json

This file contains the main properties and settings (or capabilities) for the visual. It allows the visual to declare supported features, objects, properties, and data view mapping.

package-lock.json

This file is automatically generated for any operations where npm modifies either the node_modules tree, or the package.json file.

For more information about this file, see the official npm-package-lock.json documentation.

package.json

This file describes the project package. It contains information about the project such as authors, description, and project dependencies.

For more information about this file, see the official npm-package.json documentation.

pbiviz.json

This file contains the visual metadata.

To view an example pbiviz.json file with comments describing the metadata entries, see the metadata entries section.

tsconfig.json

A configuration file for TypeScript.

This file must contain the path to *.ts file where the main class of the visual is located, as specified in the visualClassName property in the pbiviz.json file.

tslint.json

This file contains the TSLint configuration.

Metadata entries

The comments in the following code caption from the pbiviz.json file describe the metadata entries. Certain metadata, like the author's name and email, are required before you can package the visual.

Note

  • From version 3.x.x of the pbiviz tool,externalJS isn't supported.
  • Version numbers should contain four digits in the following format x.x.x.x. If your visual only has three digits, add a .0 at the end.
  • For localization support, add the Power BI locale to your visual.
{
  "visual": {
     // The visual's internal name.
    "name": "<visual project name>",

    // The visual's display name.
    "displayName": "<visual project name>",

    // The visual's unique ID.
    "guid": "<visual project name>23D8B823CF134D3AA7CC0A5D63B20B7F",

    // The name of the visual's main class. Power BI creates the instance of this class to start using the visual in a Power BI report.
    "visualClassName": "Visual",

    // The visual's version number.
    "version": "1.0.0.0",
    
    // The visual's description (optional)
    "description": "",

    // A URL linking to the visual's support page (optional).
    "supportUrl": "",

    // A link to the source code available from GitHub (optional).
    "gitHubUrl": ""
  },
  // The version of the Power BI API the visual is using.
  "apiVersion": "2.6.0",

  // The name of the visual's author and email.
  "author": { "name": "", "email": "" },

  // 'icon' holds the path to the icon file in the assets folder; the visual's display icon.
  "assets": { "icon": "assets/icon.png" },

  // Contains the paths for JS libraries used in the visual.
  // Note: externalJS' isn't used in the Power BI visuals tool version 3.x.x or higher.
  "externalJS": null,

  // The path to the 'visual.less' style file.
  "style": "style/visual.less",

  // The path to the `capabilities.json` file.
  "capabilities": "capabilities.json",

  // The path to the `dependencies.json` file which contains information about R packages used in R based visuals.
  "dependencies": null,

  // An array of paths to files with localizations.
  "stringResources": []
}

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