Power UI MCP

Overview

The Power UI MCP server lets an AI agent use your Power UI account directly: list and load your saved themes, apply them to a Power BI report you're working on, change colors and typography in plain language, and save the result back to your dashboard. It runs locally on your machine and authenticates with a personal API key.

The MCP exposes 17 tools across two scopes: account assets (list/load/save themes, list and manage palettes, open in studio) and theme styling (foundation, page background and wallpaper, title and effects styling, per-property control, and writing themes into .pbip reports). Anything you can do in the visual studio or the in-app AI assistant is available to your local agent.

Install

You'll need a Power UI Pro account and an API key. Create one at your API keys page. Treat it like a password — Power UI shows the plaintext exactly once at creation.

Note: the server runs locally on your machine, so it works in any MCP client that supports local stdio servers — including the Claude Desktop app. Clients with project access (Claude Code, Cursor) give the smoothest experience because the agent can find your .pbip on its own; in Claude Desktop you'll need to tell inject_theme the absolute path to your report.

Claude Code

Add to your project's .mcp.json (or your user-level ~/.claude.json):

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "powerui": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@powerui/mcp@latest"],
      "env": {
        "POWERUI_API_KEY": "pwu_live_..."
      }
    }
  }
}

Cursor

Cursor → Settings → MCP → Add new server. Paste the same configuration.

Claude Desktop

Settings → Developer → Edit Config opens claude_desktop_config.json. Add the same mcpServers entry there.

Restart your client. The MCP tools should appear automatically.

Tools

Account assets

• list_themes — list themes you can access (personal + org).
• load_theme — fetch a theme by id and load it as the active session theme.
• save_theme — save the active theme back to your account. Defaults to updating the loaded theme; pass name to fork or scope: "org" to share with your team.
• list_palettes — list data-color palettes (personal, org-shared, built-in).
• create_palette — save a new 8-color data palette to your account.
• update_palette — rename, re-color, or re-describe a palette you own.
• open_in_studio — get a deep link to fine-tune the active theme in the visual studio.

Theme styling

• create_theme — start a new theme with a brand color, mode, neutral palette, font, padding, etc.
• modify_theme — change foundation properties on the active theme.
• set_page_background — set the page canvas to a color, catalog image, gradient, or pattern.
• set_wallpaper — set the outspace/letterbox area to a color, gradient, or pattern.
• set_title_style — title font, size, weight, color. Globally or per visual type.
• set_effects_style — background, border, drop shadow.
• set_visual_property — fine-grained control over any visual property (axes, legends, data labels, gridlines, …).
• get_visual_controls — discover the available properties and controls for a given visual type. Use this before set_visual_property.
• inject_theme — write the active theme into a .pbip report's RegisteredResources/ and patch report.json so Power BI Desktop loads it.
• export_theme — return the active theme as Power BI JSON.

Common workflows

Apply your brand theme to a report

From your IDE, in a folder containing a .pbip Power BI Project:

The agent calls list_themes to find Acme, load_theme to pull it into the active session, and inject_theme with your report path to write it into the .pbip. Reopen the report in Power BI Desktop to see the new theme applied.

Fork a saved theme and tweak it

list_themes → load_theme(id) → set_title_style(font_size: 18, bold: true) →save_theme(name: "Acme Dark", fork: true). The new theme appears in your dashboard.

Hand off to the visual studio

open_in_studio returns a deep link to the live theme. You edit visually, save, and the agent can callload_theme again to pick up your changes for further work.

Build a report theme from scratch

The agent calls create_theme with mode, brand_color, neutral_palette, and radius — Power UI generates a full 25-950 brand palette from the hex automatically. Save with save_theme when you're happy.

Configuration

Troubleshooting

The MCP shows as "Failed to connect"

Check that POWERUI_API_KEY is set in your client config and that you've restarted the client after adding it. Run npx -y @powerui/mcp@latest directly in a terminal — if it prints a protocol error or authentication error you'll see it there. If the key is correct, verify it's not revoked at /settings/api-keys.

My styling change doesn't appear in Power BI

Power BI Desktop caches report.json on load. Close and reopen the .pbip after inject_theme for changes to take effect.

A 401 from the MCP

Your API key is missing, malformed, or revoked. Re-paste it from the dashboard. Keys start with pwu_live_and contain no spaces or quotes.

I want to revoke a key

Go to /settings/api-keys, click the trash icon next to the key. Any client using that key will start receiving 401s on its next request. Mint a new key to replace it.

Related

• AI Theme Assistant — the same tool surface, but inside the visual studio. Use whichever fits your workflow.
• Power BI Theme JSON — what export_theme and inject_theme produce.
• Import & Export — for bringing themes in and out without the MCP.