drexo is an open-source Node.js CLI that turns Tableau workbooks (.twb / .twbx) into clean, AI-readable metadata files today — and runnable React dashboard apps in v0.2.

Stop paying per-user Tableau licenses for internal dashboards. Own your code, own your metadata.

v0.1 (current): drexo analyze produces a canonical metadata file (markdown + YAML) describing the workbook. Human-readable, agent-readable, paste-into-ChatGPT-able. v0.2 (next): drexo migrate reads that metadata and emits a Vite + React app, deployable anywhere.

How It Works

Tableau Workbook (.twb / .twbx)
        │
        ▼
   drexo analyze
        │
        ▼
  .model.md  (metadata — markdown + YAML)
        │
        ▼
   drexo migrate  [v0.2]
        │
        ▼
   React App (Vite)
        │
        ▼
  Deploy anywhere

✨ Features

• Deep Tableau Analysis — Understand worksheets, dashboards, data sources, fields, and calculations
• AI-Ready Metadata — .model.md output is human-readable, LLM-friendly, and paste-into-ChatGPT-able
• High-Fidelity Migration — Map common mark types (bar, line, pie, scatter, tables, etc.) to beautiful React components
• Smart Layouts — Convert Tableau dashboard zones into responsive React grids
• Multiple Targets — Generate Vite + React apps or embeddable components for Next.js
• Flexible Data — Static JSON, API adapters, or live connections
• Great Developer Experience — TypeScript, modern tooling, easy to customize generated code

Current status: v0.1 metadata pipeline ships. drexo analyze runs end-to-end on real workbooks. React generation lands in v0.2. Contributions welcome!

🚀 Quick Start

Prerequisites

• Node.js 20+
• A Tableau workbook (.twb or .twbx)

Installation

# Run instantly with npx (recommended while in development)
npx drexo@latest --help

# Or install globally
npm install -g drexo

Basic Usage

# Generate the metadata file for a workbook
drexo analyze ./examples/giving-renewal-summary.twbx

# Output lands next to the input as <name>.model.md
cat ./examples/giving-renewal-summary.model.md

The generated .model.md is a single self-contained file: markdown narrative + fenced YAML blocks. Paste it into any LLM and ask questions about your dashboard, or feed it into drexo migrate (v0.2) to generate a React app.

📋 Commands

| Command | Description | |---|---| | drexo analyze <file> | Parse a Tableau workbook and write a canonical metadata file (<name>.model.md) | | drexo analyze <file> -o <path> | Custom output path | | drexo migrate <file> | [v0.2] Read the metadata file and generate a Vite + React app. Stub for now — prints a friendly redirect to analyze. | | drexo --debug | Enable debug logging (stack traces on errors) | | drexo --help | Show all options and examples | | drexo --version | Print the drexo version |

🗺️ Roadmap

drexo is a generic Tableau-to-React migrator. We get there by shipping working specific cases first and letting real workbooks shape the architecture — not by designing for everything on day one.

| Phase | Goal | |-------|------| | ✅ v0.1 — The Metadata Wedge (shipped) | drexo analyze → a complete, human+agent-readable metadata file (markdown + YAML) describing the workbook. No React yet. | | v0.2 — React Generator + First Real Users (next) | drexo migrate reads the metadata file → Vite + React app. 3 outside users surface real-world schema gaps. | | v0.3 — Multi-Sheet & Layout | Whole dashboard, not one sheet. Layout zones → responsive React grid. Read-only parameter display. | | v1.0 — Production-Ready Generic | Confident defaults across the long tail. Calculated fields, live parameters, filters, action links. Stable CLI surface. | | post-v1 — Data Agents & Commercial Layer (conditional) | Data-agent CLI (e.g. drexo query) using the metadata layer for conversational Q&A. Plus possible hosted runs / cloud deploy. CLI stays free forever. |

Anti-roadmap (explicit no): Tableau parity, two-way sync, visual editor, multi-chart-library support before v1.0, SaaS before users.

🛠️ Development

git clone https://github.com/raguvindtharanitharan/drexo.git
cd drexo
npm install

# Run the CLI in dev mode (TypeScript, no build step)
npm run dev -- analyze ./examples/giving-renewal-summary.twbx

# Build
npm run build

# Run the test suite
npm test

# Link for local global testing
npm run link
drexo --version

Tech decisions we made early:

• ESM-only TypeScript (no CJS shims, no __dirname hacks)
• commander for the CLI surface
• fast-xml-parser for .twb parsing; adm-zip for .twbx unzip
• yaml (Eemeli Aro) for canonical YAML emission
• Vitest + real-fixture integration tests (no mocked .twb XML)
• Markdown + YAML as the v0.1 output format — friendly to humans, LLMs, and downstream tooling. Same shape as dbt's docs.

🤝 Contributing

We're just getting started — this is a fantastic time to shape the project!

• Read CONTRIBUTING.md
• Look for issues labeled good first issue or parser
• The hardest (and most valuable) work is in the Tableau XML parser

Before submitting a pull request, open an issue so we can discuss the approach:

1. Fork the repo
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/my-feature)
3. Commit your changes
4. Open a pull request

All contributions are welcome: code, docs, example workbooks, design feedback, or real-world migration stories.

📄 License

MIT © Raguvind Tharanitharan

🙏 Acknowledgements

• Inspired by the pain of expensive BI tools and the joy of building in React
• Tableau's public workbooks and documentation (reverse-engineered with respect)
• The amazing open-source React visualization community (Recharts, ECharts, Nivo, etc.)

Made with ❤️ for teams tired of vendor lock-in.

If drexo saves your company money or helps you ship faster, star the repo and tell your friends!