Automate Databricks Deployments with Asset Bundles (DAB) and GitHub Actions
In this tutorial I show you how to build a complete CI/CD pipeline for Databricks using Databricks Asset Bundles (DABs) and GitHub Actions with OIDC authentication — no static tokens, no manual deployments, no drift between environments.
Starting from scratch, we configure a service principal with minimum Unity Catalog permissions, set up OIDC federation policies so GitHub Actions authenticates without PATs, and structure a DAB that declares every resource as code: Spark Declarative Pipelines, jobs, schemas, volumes, an AI/BI dashboard, and a Genie Space.
We then wire everything together with a GitHub Actions workflow that runs bundle validate → bundle plan → bundle deploy automatically on every push — across isolated dev and prod targets.
What you'll learn:
1. How to structure a repo with Databricks Asset Bundles
2. How to configure dev and prod targets in databricks.yml
3. How to set up OIDC federation between GitHub Actions and Databricks — no PATs
4. How to use GitHub Environments to isolate secrets per environment
5. How to run CI/CD with bundle validate, plan, and deploy
🔗 GitHub repo: https://github.com/alessandro9110/Spe...
📄 Medium article: / ci-cd-on-databricks-with-asset-bundles-and...