Deploy Smarter: Enterprise CI/CD in Microsoft Fabric Using fabric-cli and fabric-cicd

Microsoft Fabric introduces new opportunities for enterprise-grade CI/CD, but many teams struggle to choose the right tooling and approach for their deployment workflows. The key challenge is understanding how different tools support different team structures, governance models, and automation goals.

This session explores practical CI/CD strategies in Microsoft Fabric using two complementary tools:

- fabric-cli, Microsoft’s officially supported command-line tool, designed for flexible, task-oriented automation
- fabric-cicd, a community-driven, code-first library aimed at structured, multi-environment deployments

Rather than promoting a single solution, the session compares how each tool supports common deployment scenarios, including:

- Publishing Power BI reports and Fabric items
- Parameterising environments across development, test, and production
- Integrating GitHub Actions for automated deployments
- Balancing flexibility with governance and standardisation

Attendees will learn how to evaluate these tools based on team skills, operational maturity, and long-term maintainability, and how combining them can sometimes provide the best outcome.

This session is suited for BI developers, data engineers, and platform or analytics engineers who want to implement scalable, maintainable CI/CD workflows in Microsoft Fabric and make informed tooling decisions across their organisation.

1) Understand the strengths and limitations of fabric-cli and fabric-cicd in Microsoft Fabric CI/CD workflows 2) Learn how each tool supports common deployment scenarios such as multi-environment releases and GitHub Actions automation 3) Gain practical guidance on selecting and scaling the right CI/CD approach based on team skills and governance needs