Tabular Editor Documentation & Configuration

Guidance for searching Tabular Editor documentation and understanding TE3 configuration files (.tmuo, Preferences.json, etc.).

Pre-flight

Before using documentation search, verify

pbi-search

pbi-search --version

If the command is not found, inform the user and offer two options:

1. Install

   pbi-search

   (recommended): see

   bin/README.md

   for install instructions via

   cargo install

   or GitHub Releases at data-goblin/pbi-search
2. Search without the CLI: use the

   microsoft-learn

   MCP tools (

   microsoft_docs_search

   ,

   microsoft_docs_fetch

   ) for Microsoft Learn content, or

   WebFetch

   to retrieve docs directly from these sources:
   • Tabular Editor docs:

     https://docs.tabulareditor.com/

   • DAX reference:

     https://dax.guide/<function>/

   • SQLBI articles:

     https://www.sqlbi.com/articles/

   • Data Goblins:

     https://data-goblins.com/

The CLI is strongly preferred; it searches all sources simultaneously and returns clean markdown. The fallback requires manual URL construction and multiple fetches.

Documentation Search

Use the

pbi-search

After install, populate the local manifest cache (once):

pbi-search sync        # ~13s

Searching

# Search all sources
pbi-search search "creating measures"

# Search only Tabular Editor docs
pbi-search search "BPA rules" --source te-docs

# Search TE blog + TE docs
pbi-search search "incremental refresh" --source te-docs --source te-blog

# JSON output for structured use in agents
pbi-search search "workspace mode" --source te-docs --json

# Include content excerpts
pbi-search search "calculated columns" --source te-docs --excerpts

Fetching full docs

# Tabular Editor doc by bare path (from search results)
pbi-search fetch features/Best-Practice-Analyzer

# Any supported URL
pbi-search fetch https://docs.tabulareditor.com/features/workspace-mode
pbi-search fetch https://dax.guide/calculate/

# Extract a specific section
pbi-search fetch features/Best-Practice-Analyzer --section "Creating rules"

# Truncate for context budget
pbi-search fetch features/creating-measures --max-chars 3000 --json

Agent search workflow

1. pbi-search search "<topic>" --source te-docs --json

   — find relevant docs
2. Use the

   path

   or

   url

   from results:

   pbi-search fetch <path>

3. No results? Broaden:

   pbi-search search "<topic>"

   (all sources)
4. DAX questions: always add

   --source dax-guide

Available sources

te-docs

dax-guide

te-blog

ms-learn

sqlbi

data-goblins

Richer search quality (optional)

Default sync builds a fast title-only index. For conceptual queries ("remove filters from column") run once with descriptions:

pbi-search sync --descriptions   # fetches meta descriptions; ~30s extra

Configuration Files (.tmuo)

TMUO files store developer- and model-specific preferences in Tabular Editor 3.

Critical

• TMUO files contain user-specific settings -- never commit to version control
• Credentials are encrypted with Windows User Key -- cannot be shared between users
• Add

  *.tmuo

  to

  .gitignore

  in all projects
• File naming:

  <ModelFileName>.<WindowsUserName>.tmuo

Structure

{
  "UseWorkspace": true,
  "WorkspaceConnection": "localhost",
  "WorkspaceDatabase": "MyModel_Workspace_JohnDoe",
  "Deployment": {
    "TargetConnectionString": "powerbi://api.powerbi.com/v1.0/myorg/Workspace",
    "TargetDatabase": "MyModel",
    "DeployPartitions": false,
    "DeployModelRoles": true
  },
  "DataSourceOverrides": {
    "SQL Server": {
      "ConnectionString": "Data Source=localhost;Initial Catalog=DevDB"
    }
  }
}

Sections

UseWorkspace

WorkspaceConnection

WorkspaceDatabase

Deployment

DataSourceOverrides

TableImportSettings

Deployment Options

TargetConnectionString

TargetDatabase

DeployPartitions

DeployModelRoles

DeployModelRoleMembers

DeploySharedExpressions

Application Preferences

TE3 stores application-level preferences in

%LocalAppData%\TabularEditor3\

Preferences.json

UiPreferences.json

Layouts.json

References

• references/doc-structure.md

  -- Detailed documentation structure

• references/url-redirects.md

  -- Old-to-new URL mapping for broken links

• schema/

  -- JSON schemas for tmuo, preferences, layouts, UI preferences

• scripts/validate_config.py

  -- Validate TE3 config files

• scripts/validate_tmuo.py

  -- Validate TMUO files

External

• pbi-search on GitHub
• Tabular Editor User Options
• Workspace Mode
• Preferences Reference