Choose a track

Pick a track before you start. The picker saves your choice in this browser, and each lab’s Next link follows it.

Full hands-onLabs 00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Start with Set up your workstation.CoreLabs 01, 02, 04, 05, 06, 07, 10, 11, 12. Start with Get your copy and explore the repo.Copilot customization onlyLabs 00, 01, 03, 06, 07, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Start with Set up your workstation.PresenterLabs 00, 01, 02. Start with Set up your workstation.

Tracks

Track	Labs	Time	Best for
Full hands-on	00, 01, 02, 03, 04, 05, 06, 07, 08, 09, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15	8 hr 50 min	You want every feature and every validation path.
Core	01, 02, 04, 05, 06, 07, 10, 11, 12	4 hr 55 min	You want the model improvement loop and PR review.
Copilot customization only	00, 01, 03, 06, 07, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15	5 hr 40 min	You care most about instructions, agents, skills, hooks, code review, and cloud agent.
Presenter	00, 01, 02, then the present pages	1 hr 45 min plus presenter prep	You need to run or rehearse a demo.

Lab durations

Lab	Duration
00. Set up your workstation	45 min
01. Get your copy and explore the repo	30 min
02. Meet the baseline model	30 min
03. Repository and path instructions	25 min
04. Connect Power BI Modeling MCP	30 min
05. question-tester, before	30 min
06. Skills and the read-only assessor	35 min
07. Handoffs, names, and descriptions	45 min
08. Relationships, date table, and measures	45 min
09. AI metadata	30 min
10. question-tester, after	25 min
11. Copilot CLI and hooks	35 min
12. Pull request, CI, and Copilot code review	35 min
13. Copilot cloud agent	35 min plus agent run time
14. Build your own agent, skill, and prompt	45 min
15. Clean up and next steps	10 min

Platform notes

Windows 11 with Power BI Desktop gives you the full lab. These labs need Desktop for the main path:

• Lab 02 opens and refreshes the PBIP.
• Lab 04 connects MCP to a Desktop model.
• Lab 05 uses live metadata and DAX through MCP.
• Lab 08 runs Desktop DAX tests.
• Lab 10 repeats the live question test.

macOS can still do file-mode work with TMDL, PBIR, instructions, skills, prompts, hooks, validation, and most repo checks. Desktop-specific checks skip or need a Windows machine.

Copilot plan notes

Most labs work with VS Code Chat and agent mode. The later GitHub-hosted features need more:

• Lab 12 needs Copilot code review. GitHub documents code review as a Copilot feature that can also be controlled by organization policy.
• Lab 13 needs Copilot cloud agent. Organization admins may need to enable it for Business or Enterprise seats.
• MCP, custom agents, prompt files, and Copilot CLI can also be disabled by organization policy, even when your account has a Copilot seat.

If a paid feature is blocked

Use the Core track through Lab 11, or read the presenter fallback pages. The repo has sample outputs for baseline and AI-ready runs, so you can still see the learning arc.

Presenter path

The Presenter track starts with setup and baseline inspection, then switches to:

• 30-minute demo
• 60-minute demo
• Facilitator checklist
• Fallbacks and reset
• Expected results

Use this path when the audience needs the story, not every hands-on edit.