Initial tests of GitHub support for Microsoft Fabric Git integration

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In this post I want to share the results of my initial tests of GitHub support for Microsoft Fabric Git integration. Which became available in my tenant last week.

To be honest, I have been looking forward to this option ever since the announcement that it was coming at the Microsoft Fabric Community Conference for various reasons.

I have a fair bit of experience with GitHub. Including covering it in some of the MVP series videos and passing a couple of the beta exams for the GitHub certifications for Azure partners.

So, when the GitHub support was announced last week I checked my tenant settings on a daily basis. When it finally appeared, I selected the option in my Admin settings.

By the end of this post, you will see the results of my initial tests. Along the way I share plenty of links and some advice.

If you need help with any jargon used in this post, you can read my other post. Which is a Microsoft Fabric Git integration jargon guide for Fabricators.

One key point I want to highlight is that the GitHub support for Microsoft Fabric Git integration is currently in preview and the contents of this post are subject to change.

Setting up a GitHub repository

After enabling the option to utilize GitHub repositories for Microsoft Fabric Git integration I created a private repository in my own GitHub account. Since the Git prerequisites states that this is possible.

Warning: If testing in your own GitHub account make sure it is a private repository and keep it as secure as possible. Also, if it is a GitHub personal account in the cloud avoid putting anything sensitive in the schema of your items. More about this in a future post.

Another key point I want to highlight is that the repository must be initialized in order to connect workspaces to it.

Note that in the above screen I only entered the prefix of the workspace as the name of the repository instead of the full workspace name. I did this to not limit myself. In case I want to connect this repository to multiple workspaces using different branches.

After creating the repository, I created a fine-grained personal access token (PAT) with read and write permission to the repository.

Note: You can still create a classic personal access token in GitHub. However, I personally recommend creating a fine-grained one for now.

When you configure the personal access token as per the Git prerequisites guide do not be alarmed that two items are selected. It is due to the fact that metadata permissions are mandatory.

Anyway, after generating the personal access token I was ready to work with GitHub as a Git provider for Microsoft Fabric Git integration.

GitHub support for Microsoft Fabric Git integration

To start connecting my workspace to my GitHub repository I went into my Microsoft Fabric workspace settings. After performing a refresh screen the GitHub option was enabled.

I selected the “Add account” button. In the “Authorize GitHub user” window that appeared I entered my name, the Personal Access Token and the repository URL. I then clicked the “Add” button.

Once done the details for the repository appeared in my workspace settings. I then clicked the “Connect” button to link the workspace to my GitHub repository.

From there I clicked on “+ New Branch” in the branch settings to create a new dev branch based on the main one.

I then clicked “Create” to return to the Git integration settings. To finish the process, I clicked the “Connect and sync” button.

I tested that it worked by publishing an existing Power BI report to the workspace. Afterwards, I committed the changes to source control as below.

I then went back into GitHub and selected the dev branch that I had created. As you can see below, it showed the metadata for the items created in Microsoft Fabric.

Which shows that GitHub support for Microsoft Fabric Git integration works.

For full disclosure, I did encounter issues when attempting to add a Data Warehouse to a brand-new workspace that had been configured. However, configuring the workspace after a Data Warehouse had been deployed in the workspace appears to work fine. It could be a localized issue though.

Final words about initial tests of GitHub support for Microsoft Fabric Git integration

I hope that my coverage about my initial tests of GitHub support for Microsoft Fabric Git integration has made for an interesting read.

Personally, I am glad that GitHub support for Microsoft Fabric Git integration has finally become available. As mentioned earlier, I have been excited about it coming for a while now for various reasons.

I intend to share more knowledge relating to working with Microsoft Fabric and GitHub together in future posts. In the meantime, if you have any comments or queries about this post feel free to reach out to me.