How to Pull from a GitHub Branch in Google Dataform (Using Development Workspaces)

Question

I've set up a repository in Google Dataform and successfully connected it to GitHub. After creating a development workspace, I can only pull from the default branch and don’t see any option to pull from other branches (e.g., your-branch-name).

According to the Dataform documentation on version control (version-control-your-code), this should be possible, but I am unable to see this option in the UI.

Is there a way to pull from branches other than the default branch into my development workspace in Google Dataform?

Answer 1

As far as I know, the only remote branches you can pull from in a development workspace are the default branch and your-branch-name (with you-branch-name being the branch named the same as your development workspace).

You can think of each development workspace as being equal to a single branch in normal git, with the branch sharing the name of the development workspace.

The only way to pull from a branch other than the default in a development workspace would be to change the Default branch name setting for the whole repository (but that obviously comes with other implications).

Alternatives:

• It is possible to create a release configuration that pulls from a unique/new branch (specified in the Git commitish setting in the release configuration).
• You can use git commands external to dataform (local CLI, for example) to tweak/merge/swap code in each branch. Push those changes to the remote branch, and then pull into a development workspace.