PBIP Explorer

A self-contained HTML viewer, explorer, and analyzer for Power BI Project (PBIP) folders. Drop a PBIP folder into the browser and the tool parses TMDL, reads DAX, explores M code, draws relationships, and flags unused fields — all locally, no upload.

No network calls. No uploads. No backend. Open the HTML file, drop your folder, and inspect.

🔗 Try it live — no install needed. Your PBIP never leaves your browser.

---

Screenshots

(Screenshots use Microsoft's public AdventureWorks PBIP sample.)

---

Quick start

1. Open pbip-explorer.html in a modern browser (Chrome / Edge 113+, Firefox 113+, or Safari 16.4+).
2. Drag a PBIP folder into the page, or click Pick a folder and select one.
3. Click through the tabs at the top.

The file can be opened directly from disk — no web server required.

---

What's a PBIP folder?

In Power BI Desktop, File → Save As → Power BI Project (folder) saves the report as a directory tree:

My report/
├── My report.SemanticModel/
│   └── definition/
│       ├── model.tmdl
│       ├── expressions.tmdl
│       ├── relationships.tmdl
│       └── tables/
│           └── *.tmdl
└── My report.Report/
    └── report.json

PBIP Explorer reads both semantic-model formats. TMDL (.SemanticModel/definition/*.tmdl, a folder of text files) and TMSL (.SemanticModel/model.bim, a single JSON file) are auto-detected — TMDL is still a Power BI Desktop preview option, so plenty of projects are saved as TMSL, and both load identically. Both report formats are auto-detected: the legacy single .Report/report.json and the newer PBIR per-file format (.Report/definition/pages/[pageName]/visuals/[visualName]/visual.json) introduced in 2026.

You can drop a folder holding several projects. Models and reports are found by their files rather than their folder names, so X.Dataset (older projects, still used by e.g. microsoft/finops-toolkit) and suffix-less folders from Fabric Git work too. Each report is paired with the model its definition.pbir names: a folder (byPath), or for a live connection (byConnection, which Fabric Git writes even when the model is in the same export) the model here whose name matches the connection's. One project opens straight away; with several you pick which, and a model shared by several reports can open with all of them — their pages side by side, and a field counts as used if any report uses it.

A report whose model isn't there — live-connected to a model in the Power BI service, or dropped without its model folder — opens on its own: pages, visuals, bookmarks and report-level measures, with the model tabs saying where the model is, and Fields used in place of Unused: every model field the report depends on, which is what the model's owner must keep.

---

This is the beginning of the README. Read the rest at the original. Read the full README ↗