I was inspired and in awe after watching the video that Rui Romano posted in LinkedIn where Rui shared a video on how he used Agentic model development works 202603 AgenticE2E FabCon.

It looked like all that I had to do was have the right tools to use, edit a few files and let the LLMs do the rest!

In this blog post I will show you how first to get all the requirements and tools set up for Agentic model development. And in the next blog post I will show you how I developed and deployed my agentic semantic model into Microsoft Fabric.

My goal was to do this using a Windows PC, Visual Studio Code and GitHub Copilot.

The reason for using these tools is that a lot of the companies where I consult have restrictions on what operating systems, program installations and LLMs that are available to be used. I have seen a lot of people using the Mac books to do this, which I am sure will work as in most of the steps I have outlined below.

Windows item installations

The first part I had to do was to install the windows items as listed below.

Visual Studio Code (VS Code)

I first had to install VS Code; this is free to download and use.

I downloaded it from here: https://code.visualstudio.com/download

.net 9 SDK

Next I had to download and install the .net 9 SDK, which I downloaded from here: https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet/9.0

NOTE: Make sure to download the SDK for your operating system. I am running Windows 11 x64

Node JS

Installing Node JS is essential for some of the LLM tasks, which I downloaded from here: https://nodejs.org/en

Python

Some of the command line tools (CLI) using Python, so I had to download and install Python, which I downloaded from here: https://www.python.org/downloads/

Azure CLI

Azure CLI is also needed to be able to complete the authentication to the Microsoft Fabric Service.

NOTE: Because I am running on x64 so installed x64 version as shown below.

Git

Git is used for both downloading items from Git repositories and is needed for version control. I downloaded it from here: https://git-scm.com/install/windows

PowerShell 7 and configure to be used in VS code

For this to work as expected, I had to make sure I had PowerShell 7 installed and configured to run in Visual Studio Code.

NOTE: When I was initially working on this it took me quite a lot of time to figure out that I was not using the same version of PowerShell in Visual Studio code.

I downloaded PowerShell 7 from here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/install/install-powershell-on-windows?view=powershell-7.6#install-the-msi-package

Once I finished the PowerShell 7 installation, I closed VS Code and opened it up again.

Verifying PowerShell version running in VS Code

I then made 100% sure when I was using the terminal in VS Code that it was running PowerShell 7.

I opened a new terminal and typed in “$psversiontable”

As shown above I could see that in the VS Code terminal I was running version 7.6.0 of PowerShell

Installing VS Code Extensions

Next, I had to install the VS Code Extensions as shown below.

GitHub copilot chat

NOTE: Ensure that you have got a GitHub Copilot chat subscription. You can sign up for the Free version here: https://github.com/features/copilot/plans

  • I clicked on Extensions
  • Then searched for ‘github.copilot-chat’
  • I then clicked on Install

Power BI Modeling MCP Server

Next, I searched for and installed the ‘Power BI Modeling MCP Server’

Microsoft Fabric MCP Server

The last extension to install was the ‘Microsoft Fabric MCP Server’

NOTE: Because it is still not officially released, I had to click on ‘Install Pre-Release’

Installing CLI tools

Next, I installed the Command Line Interface tools (CLI)

NOTE: I created a folder which will store all of the CLI tools and other items that will be downloaded.

I created a folder on my “C:\my-fabric-model”

GitHub Copilot CLI

I first installed GitHub Copilot CLI.

  • To do this I went into VS Code, clicked on Terminal and New Terminal.
  • In the terminal window I then put the following:
npm install -g @githubnext/github-copilot-cli

Microsoft Fabric CLI

Next, was the Microsoft Fabric CLI which is installed using Python

  • In the terminal window I then put the following:
  • pip install ms-fabric-cli
  • After the installation, I needed to add the Python scripts folder to the PATH on my PC
  • To do this I searched for “Edit System environment variables
  • On the System Properties, I clicked on Advanced, then Environment Variables
  • On the Environment Variables window, I clicked on Path, then Edit.
  • I then added the Python Path as shown below, by clicking on New
  • I then clicked OK all the way out of the windows.
  • I then restarted my PC for the PATH changes to take effect.
  • To validate the Python scripts was in the PATH I did the following.
    • I went into VS Code and opened a new Terminal
    • I then put in: 
      $env:PATH -split ';'
    • I could then see my Python scripts in the path.

Validate installation

It is essential to make sure that all the items I have installed are working as expected, which I then completed validation as shown below.

To do this I went into VS Code, clicked on Terminal and New Terminal.

Copilot

To validate I typed in “copilot –version”

Microsoft Fabric CLI

To validate I typed in “fab –version”

Azure CLI

To validate I typed in “az –version”

.net

To validate I typed in “dotnet –version”

Clone Repositories

Next is to clone the repositories that will be used as part of the agentic framework.

The first step was to create a folder to host all the repositories.

  • I typed the following in the VS Code Terminal. 
    • mkdir my-fabric-model && cd my-fabric-model
  • I could then see in the terminal that I was in the folder “my-fabric-model”
git clone https://github.com/RuiRomano/pbip-demo-agentic-mcp .pbip-ref

git clone https://github.com/data-goblin/power-bi-agentic-development .pbi-agentic-ref

git clone https://github.com/microsoft/skills-for-fabric .fabric-skills-ref

git clone https://github.com/RuiRomano/powerbi-agentic-plugins .plugins-ref

Updating repositories

If I wanted to update the repositories here are the steps I did to do it.

  • First, I went to the relevant folder
  • Then type “git status” to see the status of my repository to what is online
  • If there is no changes this is what I saw below.
  • If there were changes, I could see the following below.
  • To update it I then typed “git pull”
    • After the changes were made.

Install Copilot CLI plugins

Next, I installed the GitHub Copilot CLI plugins.

  • I opened the VS Code terminal and typed “copilot”
  • The first-time running Copilot I had to authenticate.
  • After completing the authentication, I got confirmation.
  • I could then see the Copilot window
  • I then used the following below to install the plugins
    • Rui Romano Agentic Plugins
/plugin marketplace add RuiRomano/powerbi-agentic-plugins
    • Power BI Agentic Plugins
/plugin install powerbi@powerbi-agentic-plugins
    • Microsoft Fabric Agentic Plugins
/plugin install fabric@powerbi-agentic-plugins
  • I then exited out of GitHub Copilot by typing exit
  • I then logged back into GitHub Copilot, to ensure it can see the plugins
  • I typed “/mcp show” and then I could then see my MCP Servers as shown below.

Install skills for Fabric

Next, I had to install the Fabric Skills.

  • I went into VS Code and opened a terminal.
  • I made sure I was in my folder “my-fabric-model”
  • I then typed in the following:
.\.fabric-skills-ref\install.ps1
  • Next, I had to register the skills by typing the following:
.\.fabric-skills-ref\mcp-setup\register-fabric-mcp.ps1

Start MCP Servers

To start with the Agentic work, I had to make sure that the MCP Servers were running.

In VS Code

  • Open Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P / Cmd+Shift+P).
  • “Run MCP: List Servers”
  • I could then see that both the MCP Servers I wanted to use are stopped.
  • I clicked on “powerbi-modeling-mcp”
    1. I clicked on “Start Server”
    2. In the terminal I could see the MCP Server starting
  • I went back to the “Run MCP: List Servers”
    1. I clicked on “Fabric MCP”
    3. In the terminal I could see the MCP Server starting
  • To confirm both MCP Servers were running I went back into the “Run MCP: List Servers”
    1. I could see the status of both servers was not set to running

Sign into GitHub Copilot Chat

The final step is to log into GitHub Copilot chat.

  • In VS Code, at the top where the command pallet is, click on the “Toggle Chat”
  • I then clicked on “Generate Agent Instructions”
  • I signed in with GitHub as this is where I have my Copilot license
  • Once I had successfully logged in, I chat options as shown below.
  • The final step I did was to ensure that my GitHub Copilot chat could see the tools I would need.
    • I clicked on Configure tools
    • In the list I could then see my tools I would need.

At this point I have got all the tools, CLI and software installed.

In the next blog post I will show you how I then edited the files and created the Semantic Model in Microsoft Fabric.

Thanks for reading, any comments or suggestions are always welcome 😊