Seeking Clarity on Microsoft Fabric CI/CD Long-Term Strategy

[Anonymous]

Hello Fabric Community,

Our organization has been one of the early adopters of Microsoft Fabric, and while we’re excited about the platform’s direction, CI/CD support remains a major gap that’s causing significant challenges for us from begining.

We’ve observed that Microsoft has introduced multiple options in this area—such as an open-source CI/CD project, REST APIs, and Fabric Deployment Pipelines. However, none of these solutions are currently comprehensive or mature enough for enterprise-scale deployment needs. The presence of multiple, partial approaches without clear guidance adds to the confusion.

As we begin to formalize our internal deployment strategy, we’re looking for clarity on:

• What is Microsoft’s long-term vision and roadmap for CI/CD in Fabric?

• Are there plans to consolidate these efforts into a unified, enterprise-ready solution?

• In the interim, what does Microsoft recommend as the most stable and scalable approach?

Any insights from the Microsoft product team or best practices from the community would be incredibly helpful.

Thanks in advance,
Thiru Peram
First Command Financial Services Inc

[v-mdharahman · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum and for raising this important topic. CI/CD in Microsoft Fabric is indeed evolving, and your concerns are shared by many in the community. Here’s what we can confirm and recommend based on the latest roadmap and internal guidance.

Microsoft’s Long-Term Vision for CI/CD in Fabric: 

Microsoft is actively working toward a unified CI/CD experience for Fabric. The goal is to integrate standard version control (Git) and CI/CD practices directly into the Fabric developer flow. This includes seamless Git operations (commit, PR, branch management) within Fabric, CLI support for deploying Fabric artifacts via Azure DevOps or GitHub actions and a unified activity feed for monitoring deployments and Copilot actions. These efforts are aligned with Fabric’s platform OKRs and are being prioritized for enterprise readiness.

While full CI/CD support is still maturing, here’s what we recommend for current stable & scalable approach:

* Use Fabric’s Git integration to manage version control. This allows multiple developers to collaborate and track changes reliably.

* Automate deployments across environments (Dev, Test, Prod) using Fabric Deployment Pipelines. This supports repeatable and high-frequency releases 

* Consider using Terraform modules with Azure DevOps for provisioning Fabric infrastructure. This ensures reproducibility and secure deployments

* For advanced automation, leverage Fabric’s Git REST APIs and CLI tools. These are especially useful for integrating with Azure DevOps or GitHub workflows

If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know.  

Best Regards,
Hammad.
Community Support Team

[Anonymous]

Hi @v-mdharahman,

Thank you so much for quick and helpful response. 

But I still don't understand the difference between the Fabric’s Git REST APIs and CLI tools vs the Microsoft opensource CI/CD (phython library). We want go for advanced automation due to the Fabric Deployment Pipelines have several limitation.

Please help me to better undersatnd the difference between REST APIs vs Python library (Microsoft Opensource) and their roadmap. 

Thanks,

Thiru

[v-mdharahman · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thank you for the following up. Let’s break down the difference between the Fabric REST APIs / CLI tools vs the open-source Python CI/CD accelerator both in functionality and intent.

Fabric REST APIs (and CLI tools) is a low-level, official endpoints exposed by Microsoft Fabric for automating deployment and management tasks which allow you to List, export, import, and update items like semantic models, dataflows, lakehouses, warehouses, etc and manage workspaces, permissions, and capacities.

Important points to keep in mind:

* These are building blocks, not full solutions.

* They do not include orchestration, versioning, or dependency resolution you’ll need to handle that in your own scripts or pipelines.

* Can be used via direct HTTP requests, or wrapped in PowerShell / Python / bash scripts depending on your DevOps stack.

We use this ideally when you're building your own custom pipeline in Azure DevOps or GitHub Actions, and want full control over the deployment process. 

Microsoft Open-source CI/CD Accelerator (Python Library + Pipeline Templates) is a community-supported project from Microsoft on GitHub. It provides reusable python functions for export/import , DevOps pipeline YAML templates for Azure DevOps and GitHub and sample use cases with parameterization, workspace mapping, environment promotion, etc.

Important points to keep in mind:

* It's an accelerator, not an official product.

* Designed to help bootstrap your Fabric CI/CD process.

* Saves you time by handling common patterns like:

• Exporting a workspace from Dev

• Saving it to a Git repo

• Importing it to Test/Prod

• Mapping between environment-specific items (like Dataflow workspace IDs)

It s perfect when you want to stand up Fabric automation quickly, without building everything from scratch. You can also extend it based on your own deployment model.

For roadmap:

* REST APIs will continue to expand as Microsoft plans to increase artifact support, improve stability, and eventually integrate more automation features (e.g., dependency graphs, Git-like versioning).

* Open-source CI/CD Accelerator being iteratively improved, but not guaranteed the same level of long-term support as official APIs. Still, it's actively maintained and updated based on feedback from enterprise users.

If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know.  

Best Regards,
Hammad.

[v-mdharahman · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous,

Thanks for reaching out to the Microsoft fabric community forum and for raising this important topic. CI/CD in Microsoft Fabric is indeed evolving, and your concerns are shared by many in the community. Here’s what we can confirm and recommend based on the latest roadmap and internal guidance.

Microsoft’s Long-Term Vision for CI/CD in Fabric: 

Microsoft is actively working toward a unified CI/CD experience for Fabric. The goal is to integrate standard version control (Git) and CI/CD practices directly into the Fabric developer flow. This includes seamless Git operations (commit, PR, branch management) within Fabric, CLI support for deploying Fabric artifacts via Azure DevOps or GitHub actions and a unified activity feed for monitoring deployments and Copilot actions. These efforts are aligned with Fabric’s platform OKRs and are being prioritized for enterprise readiness.

While full CI/CD support is still maturing, here’s what we recommend for current stable & scalable approach:

* Use Fabric’s Git integration to manage version control. This allows multiple developers to collaborate and track changes reliably.

* Automate deployments across environments (Dev, Test, Prod) using Fabric Deployment Pipelines. This supports repeatable and high-frequency releases 

* Consider using Terraform modules with Azure DevOps for provisioning Fabric infrastructure. This ensures reproducibility and secure deployments

* For advanced automation, leverage Fabric’s Git REST APIs and CLI tools. These are especially useful for integrating with Azure DevOps or GitHub workflows

If I misunderstand your needs or you still have problems on it, please feel free to let us know.  

Best Regards,
Hammad.
Community Support Team