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CSA Loom — the Microsoft Fabric experience for Azure tenants where Fabric isn't yet available: lakehouses, warehouses, notebooks, semantic models, Activator rules, Data Agents, across Commercial, GCC, GCC-High, and DoD IL5

Tutorial: Release environment editor

CSA Loom release-environment editor — Shuttle, the Azure-native equivalent of Palantir Apollo: promotion / release orchestration across workspaces, built on Azure Resource Manager deployment history and Azure Deployment Environments. No Microsoft Fabric required.

What it is

Apollo orchestrates promotion of artifacts across environments. Shuttle models dev → test → prod stages over Loom workspaces, surfaces real Azure Resource Manager deployment history for each stage, and — when a DevCenter project is configured — provisions catalog-driven Azure Deployment Environments (Bicep). It builds on the existing deployment-pipelines ARM + git backend; no Fabric.

When to use it

  • You run the same Loom solution across multiple environments and need a governed record of what version is installed where.
  • You want promotion between stages tracked with an auditable history (who promoted what, when, to which environment).
  • You want per-stage environments provisioned from a Bicep catalog through Azure Deployment Environments.

Step-by-step in Loom

  1. Create the item. Choose + New item → Release environment (Fabric IQ). The editor opens at /items/release-environment/<id>.
  2. Define stages. Use Add environment to add each stage and choose its type — Loom workspace, App Service + slot, or Deployment env — and map it to the backing resource group.
  3. Order the pipeline. Use Add edge to connect stages into a promotion path (for example dev → test → prod).
  4. Register versions. Use Add version to record a build — build number, commit, container tag, and notes — so each promotion references a concrete artifact.
  5. Review ARM history. Inspect the real Azure Resource Manager deployments across the Loom resource groups (name, resource group, state, timestamp) for each stage.
  6. Provision environments (optional). When LOOM_DEVCENTER_PROJECT is set, pick a catalog environment definition (Bicep) to provision per stage via Azure Deployment Environments.
  7. Promote. Pick a from and to stage and click Promote (or Run a slot swap for App Service targets). Loom records the promotion and the environment it targeted.

The Azure backend it rides on

  • Deployment history: Azure Resource Manager deployments per resource group.
  • Environment provisioning (optional): Azure Deployment Environments via a DevCenter project (LOOM_DEVCENTER_PROJECT).
  • App Service targets: deployment-slot swaps for slot-based promotion.

No Fabric required

Shuttle orchestrates over Loom workspaces and real Azure (ARM + Deployment Environments + App Service). No Fabric capacity or workspace is used; a missing DevCenter project simply hides the provisioning step and leaves ARM history and promotion tracking fully functional.

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