Power BI Desktop Bridge CLI

Command-line tooling for automating Power BI Desktop through the Desktop Bridge named pipe. It is designed for agent workflows that edit PBIR/PBIP files, reload the open report in Desktop, capture screenshots, and verify rendered output.

Usage

npm install -g @microsoft/powerbi-desktop-bridge-cli
powerbi-desktop status

Commands

| Command | Purpose | |---------|---------| | powerbi-desktop open <path.pbip\|path.pbix> | Launch Power BI Desktop with a report | | powerbi-desktop status [--pid <pid>] | List bridge instances, current files, unsaved-change state, and PBIR pages resolved from each instance's current file | | powerbi-desktop manifest --pid <pid> | Print the Desktop Bridge manifest for one Desktop instance | | powerbi-desktop reload --pid <pid> | Reload the selected Desktop instance's current PBIP/PBIR report definition. For semantic model changes, use the semantic-model workflow and reopen the PBIP if changes are not reflected. | | powerbi-desktop screenshot <page-id> --pid <pid> [--scale <1-3>] | Capture one report page from one selected Desktop instance; CLI default scale is 2 | | powerbi-desktop screenshot-all --pid <pid> --output-dir <dir> [--scale <1-3>] | Capture every page listed in the selected Desktop instance's current PBIR pages.json; CLI default scale is 2 |

Most commands operate on a single Power BI Desktop process. When more than one Desktop instance is available, run powerbi-desktop status first and pass the desired bridge PID with --pid.

Commands write machine-readable JSON to stdout. Progress messages and non-contract diagnostics are written to stderr so stdout can be piped safely to other tools.

reload reloads the PBIP/PBIR report currently open in the selected Desktop instance. It does not accept a separate report path; open the desired report in Desktop first, then target that Desktop process with --pid.

Run reload and screenshot operations serially for a given PID. Discovery commands such as status can run concurrently, but overlapping operations against the same Desktop process may be cancelled or time out. Use --wait-seconds when the report is still loading or immediately after a reload.

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