Transactional pipelines

In Bauplan, every pipeline run is treated like a database transaction. That means:

• If the run succeeds, all outputs are committed.
• If the run fails, the data on your current branch remains untouched.

This behavior applies automatically - whether you're developing locally or running production jobs on a schedule.

Transactionality is enforced via temporary execution branches:

• When you trigger a run, the platform forks your current branch to create an isolated branch: intermediate outputs are materialized in this temporary branch.
• If the run succeeds, the outputs are merged into your working branch, making it point to the latest commit - your branch now reflects the results of that pipeline run.
• If the run fails, your working branch remains unchanged. Intermediate artifacts are preserved for inspection.

This guarantees that every change to your lakehouse is atomic, isolated, and versioned.

          ┌────────────┐
          │  main/     │
          │  active    │
          │  branch    │
          └─────┬──────┘
                │
      (run triggered from this branch)
                │
                ▼
      ┌────────────────────┐
      │  temporary branch  │
      │   (isolated run)   │
      └─────────┬──────────┘
                │
                ▼
      ┌─────────────────────────────┐
      │   pipeline succeeds?        │-─────────────────┐
      └─────────────┬───────────────┘                  │
                    │ yes                              │ no
                    ▼                                  ▼
        ┌────────────────────────┐           ┌───────────────────────────┐
        │ Merge into working     │           │ Keep active branch clean  │
        │ branch as new Ref      │           │ Keep temp branch for logs │
        └───────────┬────────────┘           └─────────┬─────────────────┘
                    │                                  │
                    ▼                                  ▼
        ┌──────────────────────┐             ┌─────────────────────────────┐
        │ Active branch now    │             │ Inspect failed run metadata │
        │ points to new Ref    │             │ Re-run or debug as needed   │
        └──────────────────────┘             └─────────────────────────────┘