u/DifficultChef8195

Been experimenting with the Microsoft Fabric Apps preview — built one end-to-end using VS Code with the Rayfin SDK instead of going through the browser UI. Wanted to share the actual experience and get a reality check from others doing similar.

What I did:

- Set up the Fabric Apps extension in VS Code and scaffolded a project using the Rayfin SDK
- Used prompt-driven iteration to tweak the UI layout — letting the agent reshape components rather than hand-coding every change
- Deployed directly from VS Code and validated it against an actual semantic model

What worked:

- The scaffold-to-deploy loop is genuinely faster than the browser once you're set up
- Prompt-based UI adjustments handle layout-level changes well — saves a lot of back and forth
- VS Code gives you actual version control over your app definition, which the browser workflow doesn't

What's still painful:

- The preview is early — some SDK methods are undocumented or behave inconsistently
- Agent instructions don't flow through to the DAX engine. All business logic still has to live in the semantic model. Don't expect the agent layer to compensate for a weak model
- Deployment errors are cryptic if your workspace isn't configured exactly right

Where I'd actually like input:

1. Has anyone got this running against a live Fabric Warehouse or Lakehouse, or only tested on imported models?
2. Are you trusting the agent to scaffold the full app structure, or just using it for UI-layer edits?
3. Is this in your actual delivery pipeline yet, or still a "great for demos, wouldn't ship it" situation?

Recorded a full walkthrough of the whole setup-to-deploy process on my channel - BI Artillery. Happy to drop it in the comments if the sub allows it — don't want to step on self-promo rules.

Been experimenting with GitHub Copilot CLI as a way to generate Power BI reports from a PBIP file instead of building everything by hand. Wanted to share the actual process and get a reality check from people doing similar.

What I did:

• Set up and configured Copilot in the CLI, pointed it at a project saved in PBIP format (the report and model definitions as files, not a packed .pbix).
• Asked it to generate a report against that PBIP — letting it work directly with the underlying definition files rather than me building visuals in Desktop.
• Iterated through prompts to shape what it produced.

Where I'd actually like input:

1. For anyone who's tried CLI/agentic tools against PBIP — how far does it realistically get before you have to take over? Mine was usable as a starting structure but needed real cleanup.
2. Did you trust it with the model layer (TMDL) too, or only the report definition? Curious where the reliability line is.
3. Is anyone running this as part of an actual workflow, or is it still a "fun to demo, wouldn't ship it" thing for you?

Recorded a short walkthrough of the whole setup-to-report process. Happy to drop it in the comments if the sub allows it — don't want to step on self-promo rules.