A11y CLI: Run Accessibility Audits for Power BI from your Terminal

What if you could audit the accessibility of a Power BI report without even opening Power BI Desktop?

The latest episode of PBIX A11Y Bytes is now live, and it walks through PBIR A11Y, a free, open-source command-line tool that scans Power BI reports for common accessibility issues. From missing alt text and colour contrast problems to font scaling, tab order, and missing axis titles, PBIR A11Y helps identify barriers before reports reach end users.

In this episode, I demonstrate three ways to run the CLI against your own PBIP projects: connect remotely with no installation required, clone the repository, or install the tool locally. You’ll also learn how to export the results to a shareable Word document, making it easier to communicate findings with colleagues, clients, and stakeholders.

Whether you’re a Power BI developer, accessibility advocate, consultant, or anyone building reports that need to meet WCAG standards, PBIR A11Y can help you catch issues early, directly from your report files, without ever opening Power BI Desktop.

Get the CLI here: https://github.com/Juls-BI/pbir-a11y

This demo is shown on Windows with VS Code. The CLI itself works cross-platform, but some setup steps (like the PowerShell execution policy) are Windows-specific.

What you’ll need before running the CLI

• Node.js (v18 or later)
  Download and install the LTS version from nodejs.org (use the Windows Installer, not the zip). This installs both Node and npm. After installing, fully close and reopen VS Code so the new PATH is picked up.
• Visual Studio Code
  With the integrated terminal set to PowerShell.
  PowerShell execution policy set to allow local scripts
  By default, Windows blocks npm’s PowerShell script wrapper. Run this once in your terminal:
  Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser
  This only needs to be done once per machine or user account.
• Git (only needed if you want to clone the repo)
  Check if you already have it with git –version. If not, install from git-scm.com.
• A Power BI project in PBIP format
  Specifically the .Report folder inside your PBIP project (not the .pbix file). This is what the CLI reads.

Three ways to run the CLI, shown in this video

• Method 1 – Connect remotely (Connect remotely (no manual download or install; npx temporarily fetches the code from GitHub and runs it, with no lasting install)
  The quickest way to try it. Runs the CLI straight from GitHub each time:

npx github:Juls-BI/pbir-a11y check "path to your .Report folder" --docx "output path for Word report"

• Method 2 – Clone the repo
  Best if you’ll come back to it often, want to explore or modify the code, or want to easily update with git pull:

git clone https://github.com/Juls-BI/pbir-a11y.git
cd pbir-a11y
npm install
npm run build
npm start -- check "path to your .Report folder" --docx "output path for Word report"

• Method 3 – Download and install locally
  On the repo page, click Code → Download ZIP, then extract it to a local folder and open that folder in VS Code:

npm install
npm run build
npm start -- check "path to your .Report folder" --docx "output path for Word report"