Join us at FabCon Atlanta from March 16 - 20, 2026, for the ultimate Fabric, Power BI, AI and SQL community-led event. Save $200 with code FABCOMM.
Register now!Get Fabric Certified for FREE during Fabric Data Days. Don't miss your chance! Request now
Solved! Go to Solution.
Hi @g3kuser
When you call the mssparkutils credentials functions without specifying any explicit credentials or linked service parameters, the runtime automatically uses the identity under which the notebook is executing. In your case, because the notebook is being deployed and run through a Fabric pipeline configured with SPN authentication—and the SPN appears as the item owner—the mssparkutils calls are using the service principal’s credentials.
In your current setup, since no explicit workspace identity configuration is provided (or its permissions granted for Key Vault access), the secret retrieval and token acquisition calls fall back to using the SPN credentials
I am curious to understand how it worked without the need for client secret to be passed to the process.
Hi @g3kuser
When you call the mssparkutils credentials functions without specifying any explicit credentials or linked service parameters, the runtime automatically uses the identity under which the notebook is executing. In your case, because the notebook is being deployed and run through a Fabric pipeline configured with SPN authentication—and the SPN appears as the item owner—the mssparkutils calls are using the service principal’s credentials.
In your current setup, since no explicit workspace identity configuration is provided (or its permissions granted for Key Vault access), the secret retrieval and token acquisition calls fall back to using the SPN credentials
Thank you for the explanation. As the executing user is SPN I am unable to understand how token was retrieved without the need of client secret to be supplied for the process.
Check out the November 2025 Fabric update to learn about new features.
Advance your Data & AI career with 50 days of live learning, contests, hands-on challenges, study groups & certifications and more!