Running PQ code outside PowerBI using the new PowerQuery SDK for Visual Studio Code: a solution

[pj-spoelders]

For whoever's still interested in running PowerQuery outside of PowerBI in a different way:
You can do this, via command line, using the PowerQuery SDK for Visual Studio Code:
Look into the test framework here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-query/sdk-testframework/test-framework
You can use PQTest.exe (part of the new PowerQuery SDK) to run whatever PowerQuery or M lang you want.
The output gets captured to a .pqout file, which is easily parseable.
There's a whole test suite for custom connectors included that could give you a good idea how to start.
Good luck!
Edit: I only tested this with custom connectors but this means it should be basically possible with every data source you can code up yourself. I'm not sure if the official bundled connectors are available for use in PQTest.exe, I'll explore this further when I find the time.