Within this post I share the results of my initial tests of the new commit to standalone branch feature in Microsoft Fabric. Which you to create a fresh branch and commit your current changes to it in one single action.
I decided to share my results since it is related to my previous post. Where I covered automating the branch out to new workspace functionality.
Testing the new commit to standalone branch feature in Microsoft Fabric feature
In order to work with this feature the workspace needs to be configured with Microsoft Fabric Git integration. Which I covered in more depth in a previous post.
Fortunately, I already had a workspace configured. Which contained an uncommitted change. When I went into the workspace I was pleasantly surprised to be greeted by the below prompt.
I clicked on close, selected the item to commit and then clicked the arrow on the commit button.
In the create a new branch window that appeared I entered in a branch name and then clicked on the create button.
Afterwards, I navigated to the repository in Azure DevOps and confirmed that the new branch was there. In addition, I checked the metadata and confirmed the change existed in there as well.
Key points based on results
Currently, this feature creates a new branch for you and will commit your current changes to the new branch only. The original branch will still contain uncommitted changes.
After using this feature your existing workspace is still connected to the original branch containing the uncommitted changes. This can be practical in various scenarios such as the ones mentioned in the initial Reddit announcement.
Another key point is that this feature currently does not create a workspace for you. If required, you will need to connect a workspace to the new branch by other means. I guess time will tell if this will be catered for in the future by a new combined branch out and commit workspace item.
Anyway, I do hope that this post that covered the new commit to standalone branch feature in Microsoft Fabric is insightful. Because I get the feeling this will make some of the folks out there experiencing papercuts happy.