Best Practice

A typed Best Practice Analyzer over your live model: it scans for the classic modeling problems (performance, DAX, formatting, naming, layout), fixes the deterministic ones in one click, and lets you load your own rules. Available in the Studio and over MCP.

Where AI-Readiness is the AI-consumption lens, the Best Practice Analyzer (BPA) is classic model hygiene: the things that make a model fast, correct and maintainable for people. The two run side by side and complement each other. Semanticus ships the canonical Power BI standard ruleset as the default and merges any rules embedded in the model.

#In the Studio

The Best Practice tab lists violations grouped Category to Rule to Items, each with its severity and the offending object. Violations that can be fixed deterministically are flagged auto-fixable and can be fixed in place; the rest carry a remediation prompt so you can fix them with the right editor. Right-click any item to reveal the object in the Model tree or copy its reference.

#Over MCP

Your own Claude Code runs the same engine. On a large model, start with the summary, then filter.

bpa_summary                            # rule count + violation counts by category / rule / severity
bpa_scan category=Performance          # the violations themselves, filterable
bpa_scan autoFixableOnly=true          # only the ones with a deterministic fix
bpa_fix <ruleId> <objRef>               # fix one violating object
bpa_fix_all                            # every deterministic auto-fix in one undoable batch

bpa_summary returns the rule count, the total violation count, the auto-fixable count and the counts by category, rule and severity without the (potentially large) list. bpa_scan returns the violations, filtered by category, ruleId or autoFixableOnly. The counts are always for the full model; only the returned list is filtered.

#Fixing violations

Deterministic fixes are literal property changes (a bidirectional relationship set to single, a key column's SummarizeBy set to None). bpa_fix applies one and bpa_fix_all applies every deterministic fix in a single undoable batch. Destructive method-call fixes are refused by design.

For everything else, bpa_get_fix_prompt returns a remediation instruction with the rule and object context, so the fix is made with the correct tool (set_description, set_measure_format, update_measure or rename_object). Every rule is fixable: deterministically, or by you with the right prompt.

#Loading your own rules

Bring your team's standards with you. load_bpa_rules loads rules from a file path, an http(s) URL or inline JSON in the standard rules schema. They layer on top of the bundled Power BI standard ruleset and are persisted on the model, so they travel with it and are undoable. replace=false merges by id; replace=true sets the model's custom rules to exactly that set. reset_bpa_rules clears them and reverts to the bundled ruleset.

#Waivers, honestly

When a violation is a conscious choice, waive_finding (system bpa) accepts it so it stops counting, but honestly: a reason is required, the waiver is stored on the model with who and when, and the finding is still surfaced (tagged waived). A per-instance waiver is free and also writes the ignore annotation that Tabular Editor honours; waiving an entire rule model-wide is the Pro bulk lever. list_waivers is the audit trail and unwaive_finding reinstates a finding. Waived BPA findings do not block the deploy gate, but they are counted so the picture stays honest.

#See also

• AI-Readiness: the AI-consumption lens (descriptions, synonyms, Prep-for-AI), scored A to F.
• Edit History: every fix is tracked, tagged and undoable on the shared timeline.