topic Feature request: Ability to delete local branches in git folders in Administration & Architecture

Feature request: Ability to delete local branches in git folders

Rjdudley — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 14:42:18 GMT

According to the documentation https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/databricks/repos/git-operations-with-repos

"Local branches in Databricks cannot be deleted, so if you must remove them, you must also delete and reclone the repository."

Creating and throwing away local branches is fundamental to git, it encourages experimentation and allows to switch from incomplete WIP to work on something more pressing, then switch back. The ability to delete local branches should be added to the Git Folders functionality in Databricks. Having to delete and reclone the repo is an unacceptable workflow as there may be WIP which would be destroyed by the repo delete.

Re: Feature request: Ability to delete local branches in git folders

Satyadeepak — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 17:42:26 GMT

Hi @Rjdudley I have raised it with our Engineering team. There's work over the next year to potentially enhance this, but the temporary suggestion for is that you can use your git provider to delete branches (for example, once they merge something in)

Re: Feature request: Ability to delete local branches in git folders

Satyadeepak — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:11:09 GMT

Also, rather than switching between dev branches, you can create another git folder for the other branches. Users can create a git folder for each dev branch they work on. Those git folders can be deleted after the branches are merged

Re: Feature request: Ability to delete local branches in git folders

Rjdudley — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 21:38:10 GMT

Thanks for looking into this! Does deleting the branch in the org repo delete the local branch? I don't think so but I'll test that.

Otherwise, if you're going to create a new repo for every branch, then you don't really need the feature branch.