Data

Tools

Indexes

Applications

Experiments

Awesome

An open API service indexing awesome lists of open source software.

https://github.com/jonathan-pap/powerbi-lineage

Generate documentation from Power BI PBIP projects — runs in your browser (nothing uploaded) or as a local CLI. Outputs a searchable dashboard plus 9 Markdown docs ready for ADO Wiki or GitHub. Measures, pages, lineage, and a model-health audit.
https://github.com/jonathan-pap/powerbi-lineage

azure-devops browser-tool data-dictionary dax documentation file-system-access-api lineage markdown pbip power-bi powerbi semantic-model tmdl typescript wiki zero-dependencies

Last synced: 29 days ago
JSON representation

Generate documentation from Power BI PBIP projects — runs in your browser (nothing uploaded) or as a local CLI. Outputs a searchable dashboard plus 9 Markdown docs ready for ADO Wiki or GitHub. Measures, pages, lineage, and a model-health audit.

Awesome Lists containing this project

README 

          
# Power BI Documenter



> **Lineage · Audit · Wiki-ready Markdown**



Open a PBIP project folder — get a searchable dashboard plus nine Markdown docs ready for ADO Wiki or GitHub. Runs **entirely in your browser** (nothing uploads) or as a **local CLI**.





  Try it — no install needed






  Tests 276/276

  Runtime deps 0

  Node ≥18






  Power BI Documenter landing page




## What you get



- **Interactive dashboard** — 11 tabs: Sources, Tables, Columns, Relationships, Measures, Calc Groups, Functions, Pages (with layout wireframe), Unused, Lineage (search-driven), Documentation

- **Wiki-ready Markdown** — up to 9 generated docs, paste-ready for ADO Wiki or GitHub. **Lite / Detailed toggle** per doc — paste-into-wiki summary for stakeholders, full reference for engineers. Cross-doc links between them resolve in the dashboard, on GitHub, and on ADO Wiki

- **Improvements audit** — 16 checks across five severity tiers (high / medium / low / info / strengths) including broken-DAX-reference detection

- **Source Map** — flat PBI-column → physical-source lineage with CSV export

- **Page layout wireframe** — SVG thumbnail of each page showing visuals at true canvas positions

- **Privacy by default** — browser-mode files never leave your machine; CLI binds to loopback only



## Tour



### Inspect the model



Measures tab

Columns tab



Measures — DAX dependencies, where-used per visual + page, direct/indirect/unused status, descriptions inline. CSV export honours filters.

Columns — types, usage counts, status, sortable + searchable. Same CSV export pattern.



Tables tab

Tables tab — drill-down



Tables — grouped by role (Fact / Dimension / Bridge / Calc Group). Per-table stats for columns, measures, keys, FKs.

Tables drill-down — expand any table to see columns, measures, and per-relationship cardinality chips (*:1, ↔ for bidi).



### Relationships, sources & lineage



Relationships tab

Sources tab



Relationships — active + inactive, cardinality (one/many on each side), cross-filter direction (single → / both ↔). CSV export.

Sources — connection buckets, partition modes, physical-source index (what breaks if this source goes away?), hand-written SQL from Value.NativeQuery, M-step breakdown classifying every ETL step, raw M expressions on demand.



Lineage view

Unused tab



Lineage — search any measure or column from the tab itself, or click an entity from any other tab. Shows upstream DAX dependencies + source tables + functions, and downstream visuals + measures that feed into it.

Unused — orphan measures, dead-chain measures, indirect-use detection. Pairs with the Improvements audit's broken-reference detection.



### Pages, functions, calc groups



Pages tab — overview

Pages tab — wireframe



Pages overview — every page in the report with visual count, slicers, measure / column bindings.

SVG wireframe — each page's visuals at true canvas positions. Charts, cards, slicers, tables, maps — shapes and buttons deliberately filtered.



Pages tab — bindings

Functions tab



Per-visual bindings — every measure + column each visual consumes, with type chips. Hover the wireframe for field-well tooltips.

UDF reference — parameters, body, and every measure that calls each function. Tabular 1702+.



Calc Groups tab



Calc Groups — items, precedence, format-string expressions per item.



### Wiki-ready Markdown





  Documentation tab with Model technical specification




Nine Markdown documents — paste-ready for ADO Wiki or GitHub, anchor-stable, with cross-doc links that resolve everywhere.



| Doc | What's in it |

|---|---|

| **Model** | Technical spec — front matter, schema summary, per-table breakdown, relationships, pages roll-up |

| **Data Dictionary** | Per-table column catalog with PK / FK / CALC / HIDDEN badges + textual star-schema fragments (FK targets, role tags) |

| **Sources** | Data-sources catalog, partition modes, field parameters, composite-model proxies |

| **Measures** | A–Z reference with DAX, dependencies (Depends on / Used by), per-visual + per-page bindings |

| **Functions** | UDF reference — parameters, description, body |

| **Calc Groups** | Calculation-group reference with per-item descriptions |

| **Pages** | Per-page visual catalog — type, title, field bindings for every visual |

| **Improvements** | Prioritised action list — severity-tiered with rationale |

| **Index** | Alphabetical glossary — every named entity links to its full reference in the companion docs |



Plus a **Changelog** tab exposing the project's release history.



## Try it



### Browser (no install)



**[→ Open the browser build](https://jonathan-pap.github.io/PowerBI-Lineage/)** — requires Chrome, Edge, or Opera (File System Access API).



1. Click **Open folder** — pick the PBIP project parent folder (the one that contains both `.Report` and `.SemanticModel`). Or click **Try a sample** for a one-click demo.

2. When multiple project pairs exist under one parent, a pair-picker lets you choose which Report + Semantic Model to load. Report-only and Model-only modes are also supported.

3. Dashboard renders in the same page.



Firefox / Safari users: run the CLI ([see below](#running)) — the File System Access API is Chromium-only.



### Running — CLI mode



Requires Node.js 18+ and a `.Report` folder with its `.SemanticModel` sibling.



**Double-click (Windows):**



```

launch.bat

```



First run does `npm install` + `npm run build`, then starts the app and opens your browser.



**From the terminal:**



```sh

npm install

npm run build

node dist/app.js

```



The app listens on `http://127.0.0.1:5679` (loopback only — nothing leaves your machine). Paste the `.Report` path or use the picker. Recent reports are remembered.



## How it works



### Browser mode



The same parser + data-builder that power the CLI run client-side via three small shims:



- `src/browser/fs-shim.ts` — pretends to be `fs` but reads from an in-memory Map

- `src/browser/path-shim.ts` — POSIX-style `path` replacement

- `src/browser/fsa-walk.ts` — walks a `FileSystemDirectoryHandle` into the Map



An import-map in `docs/index.html` redirects bare `import … from "fs"` / `"path"` to the shims. The parser never knows the difference.



### Build + deploy



```sh

npm run build:browser    # → ./docs/

npm run serve:browser    # → 127.0.0.1:5700

```



`.github/workflows/pages.yml` auto-publishes `docs/` to GitHub Pages on every push to `main`.



## Project layout



```

src/

  pbir-reader.ts       Read-only access to PBIR report/page/visual JSON

  model-parser.ts      findSemanticModelPath + TMDL + BIM parsers

  report-scanner.ts    Walks visuals/filters/objects to extract field bindings + positions

  data-builder.ts      Cross-references model + report into FullData

  md-generator.ts      9 MD docs (Lite + Detailed modes), ADO Wiki-safe anchors, cross-doc xref links

  improvements.ts      16-check audit (incl. broken-ref detection) — severity-tiered

  html-generator.ts    Dashboard HTML template

  client/              Dashboard runtime (tabs, search, sort, lineage view, wireframe)

                         main.ts · render/escape.ts · render/md.ts · globals.d.ts

  render/              Shared server-side escape helpers

  app.ts               CLI HTTP server + landing page

  browser/             FSA walker + shims + entry shell + pair-picker logic

                         entry.ts · fsa-walk.ts · fs-shim.ts · path-shim.ts · pair-picker.ts



scripts/

  build-browser.mjs    Assembles docs/ from dist/ + browser TS output

  bake-sample.mjs      Bakes a sample PBIP into docs/sample-data.json

  serve-browser.mjs    Tiny static server for local testing



changelog/             Per-version release notes (one file per release)

tests/                 node:test suites — 276 tests, zero framework deps

```



## Zero runtime dependencies



Runtime deps: none. Only Node builtins (`fs`, `path`, `http`, `crypto`, `child_process`). Dev-deps are `typescript` + `@types/node` only — needed to build.



## Developing



```sh

npm run typecheck    # tsc --noEmit

npm test             # compile + run Node's built-in test runner

npm run build        # compile CLI to dist/

npm run build:browser  # compile + assemble docs/ + bake sample

```



Tests use the stdlib `node:test` module. `.github/workflows/ci.yml` runs typecheck + tests + build on every push and PR across Node 18 / 20 / 22.



## Publishing to Azure DevOps Wiki



Each of the nine generated MDs starts with an HTML comment suggesting its wiki page name:



```markdown



# Measures Reference

```



**To publish:**



1. Open the dashboard for your report, switch to the **Documentation** tab

2. For each doc (Model / Data Dictionary / Sources / Measures / Functions / Calc Groups / Pages / Improvements / Index):

   - Click **⎘ Copy** to copy the markdown

   - In ADO Wiki, create a new page with the name from the `` hint

   - Paste

3. If you want ADO's auto-TOC instead of the hand-rolled one, type `[[_TOC_]]` at the top of the page



### Compatibility



| Feature | ADO Wiki | GitHub | Dashboard |

|---|---|---|---|

| Anchors (jump-to nav, cross-references) | ✅ via `adoSlug` algorithm | ✅ | ✅ |

| Same-doc anchor links (`[text](#anchor)`) | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ scrolls within doc |

| Cross-doc links (`[text](DocName.md#anchor)`) | ⚠ rename `.md` → page-path on paste | ✅ if files share a folder | ✅ tab-switches + scrolls |

| `` / `` collapsibles | ✅ native | ✅ native | ✅ native |

| Pipe tables | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |

| Fenced `dax` code blocks | ✅ syntax-highlighted | ✅ | ✅ syntax-highlighted |

| ```` ```mermaid ```` lineage / star fragments | ⛔ not emitted (render-quality wasn't reliable across targets) | ⛔ not emitted | ⛔ not emitted |

| Badge `` styling | ⚠ CSS stripped — emoji-prefixed plain text (`🔑 PK`) | ⚠ same fallback | ✅ styled pill |

| Auto-anchor from heading | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |



Every anchor link is verified by `tests/md-anchors.test.ts` — drift fires CI.



## Changelog



[`changelog/`](changelog/) — one file per release. Full index in [`changelog/README.md`](changelog/README.md). Future direction is open-ended; feature requests welcome via Issues.



Latest release: **[v0.11.7](changelog/0.11.7.md)** — Default tab on first load is now **Sources** (was Measures), and Measures + Columns sort no longer flips to ascending on report reload. Small UX defaults that were quietly wrong.