Fabric SDK Usage

Overview

@microsoft/fabric-app-data lets web applications query Fabric semantic models at runtime. The SDK provides a FabricClient that handles querying, result parsing, caching, and error handling. Transport and authentication are delegated to an IFabricApiProxy implementation, keeping the SDK environment-agnostic (browser, Node.js, Fabric extensions).

Quick Start

import { FabricClient } from "@microsoft/fabric-app-data";

const client = new FabricClient({
  proxy,                               // provided by host environment
  semanticModels: {
    sales: { workspaceId: "...", itemId: "..." },
  },
});

const result = await client.semanticModel("sales").query(
  "EVALUATE SUMMARIZECOLUMNS(Product[Category], \"Total\", [Sales Amount])"
);

if (result.status === "success") {
  // result.table.columns — [{name, dataType}]
  // result.table.rows    — unknown[][]
} else {
  // result.error.category — "api" | "query" | "overflow" | "network" | "unknown"
  // result.error.message
}

Key Concepts

FabricClient Configuration

The FabricClient is constructed with a config object. The proxy and connection details are typically provided by the host environment — your code just needs to pass them through:

new FabricClient({
  proxy,                               // Provided by host environment
  semanticModels: {                    // Named connections
    alias: { workspaceId, itemId },
  },
  cache: {                             // Optional
    enabled: true,                     // Default: true
    maxEntries: 64,                    // Default: 64 (LRU eviction)
  },
});

• workspaceId can be a GUID or "me" for My Workspace items.

Managing Connections

The FabricClient accepts connection config as a plain object. How you manage those IDs (environment variables, config files, codegen) is up to your project. The only requirement is that workspaceId and itemId are provided for each named connection.

const client = new FabricClient({
  proxy,
  semanticModels: {
    sales: { workspaceId: "00c98f7c-...", itemId: "03f2dc11-..." },
  },
});

Querying

There is one method for DAX queries:

const result = await client.semanticModel("alias").query(dax);

// To skip the cache:
const fresh = await client.semanticModel("alias").query(dax, { bypassCache: true });

Result Handling

Always check result.status — queries never throw.

Each query must contain exactly one EVALUATE statement. On success, the result contains a single table with:

• columns: Array<{ name: string, dataType: string }> — column metadata
• rows: unknown[][] — row-major array, values match column order by index

const result = await model.query("EVALUATE ...");

if (result.status === "success") {
  // result.table.columns = [{ name: "Product[Name]", dataType: "String" },
  //                          { name: "[Sales]", dataType: "Int64" }]
  // result.table.rows    = [["Widget", 42], ["Gadget", 17]]
  // result.table.rows[0][0] → "Widget" (matches columns[0])
  // result.table.rows[0][1] → 42       (matches columns[1])
} else {
  console.error(result.error.message);
  // result.error.category: "query" (bad DAX), "overflow" (value too large),
  //                        "api" (HTTP error), "network" (connectivity), "unknown"
}

Caching

Results are cached in memory by default (LRU, 64 entries).

const r1 = await model.query("EVALUATE T");  // r1.fromCache === false
const r2 = await model.query("EVALUATE T");  // r2.fromCache === true

// Check cache age
if (r2.fromCache && r2.cachedAt) {
  const ageMs = Date.now() - r2.cachedAt.getTime();
}

// Force fresh result
const fresh = await model.query("EVALUATE T", { bypassCache: true });

// Clear cache
client.clearCache();                          // all sub-clients
model.clearCache();                           // this model only

What gets cached:

• ✅ Success results
• ✅ Query errors (bad DAX — won't fix itself)
• ❌ API errors (401, 500 — transient)
• ❌ Network errors (transient)

Error Categories

Data Types and DateTime Semantics

The SDK converts all DAX data types to standard JS values:

DateTime values are returned as ISO 8601 strings without a timezone suffix (no Z, no ±HH:MM). This matches the semantics of Analysis Services semantic models, where datetimes are timezone-unaware.

// DateTime column values look like:
"2024-01-15T10:30:00.000"   // no timezone — interpret as-is
"2023-06-01T00:00:00.000"

This format is directly usable as a temporal type in charting libraries and ensures consistent display across all browser timezones. The JSON and Arrow protocols both return the same format.

Integer overflow: If an integer value exceeds ±Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER (±9,007,199,254,740,991), the query returns an error with category: "overflow" rather than silently losing precision.

Common Patterns

Multiple Models

const client = new FabricClient({
  proxy,
  semanticModels: {
    sales: { workspaceId: "ws-1", itemId: "item-1" },
    inventory: { workspaceId: "ws-2", itemId: "item-2" },
  },
});

const salesResult = await client.semanticModel("sales").query("EVALUATE ...");
const invResult = await client.semanticModel("inventory").query("EVALUATE ...");

My Workspace Items

semanticModels: {
  myModel: { workspaceId: "me", itemId: "..." },
}

Disabling Cache

new FabricClient({
  proxy,
  cache: { enabled: false },
  semanticModels: { ... },
});

Anti-Patterns

• Don't catch errors from query() — it never throws. Check result.status.
• Don't hardcode endpoint URLs — the proxy handles transport.
• Don't construct SemanticModelClient directly — use client.semanticModel(alias).
• Don't import from internal paths — only import from "@microsoft/fabric-app-data".

Type Reference

All types are exported from the "@microsoft/fabric-app-data" package entry point.

Key types to import when needed:

import type {
  FabricClientConfig,
  FabricItemRef,
  QueryResult,
  CachedQueryResult,
  QueryCacheOptions,
  QueryTable,
  QueryColumn,
  QueryError,
} from "@microsoft/fabric-app-data";

For full type definitions, see references/types.md in this skill.