Snowflake CLI: Where It Wins Over Snowsight-Part2(With Git&GitHub)

2026-06-23 · Source: Data Engineering on Medium · Field: Technology & Digital — Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Software Development & Engineering, Cloud Computing & IT Infrastructure · Depth: Intermediate, quick

Summary

This article, Part 2 of a series, details how to transition a Snowflake CLI-based Snowpark project into a fully automated CI/CD pipeline using Git and GitHub Actions. Building on a locally tested Snowpark UDF, the guide outlines initializing Git within the project scaffold created by "snow init". It emphasizes creating a ".gitignore" file to exclude sensitive configurations like ".snowflake/" and build artifacts such as "output/" and "*.zip". The process covers committing the initial validated code to a GitHub repository, then adding a new function, "extract_area_code()", to "functions.py". This new code is built and deployed to Snowflake using "snow snowpark build --connection mysnwfkconn" and "snow snowpark deploy --connection mysnwfkconn --replace", followed by committing and pushing these updates to GitHub. This workflow ensures version control, collaboration, and automated deployments for Snowpark UDFs.

Key takeaway

For MLOps Engineers managing Snowflake Snowpark deployments, integrating Git and GitHub Actions is crucial. You should establish a robust CI/CD pipeline to automate builds and deployments of Snowpark UDFs, ensuring version control, collaboration, and deployment safety. This approach streamlines updates, reduces manual errors, and provides a clear audit trail for all code changes. Implement a ".gitignore" to protect sensitive configurations and build artifacts.

Key insights

Automating Snowpark UDF deployments via Git and GitHub Actions enhances structure, safety, and collaboration.

Principles

• Version control centralizes Snowpark project management.
• Automated CI/CD streamlines Snowpark UDF deployments.
• Exclude sensitive files with ".gitignore".

Method

Initialize Git, configure ".gitignore", commit code, push to GitHub, then use "snow snowpark build" and "snow snowpark deploy" for updates, verifying changes in Snowflake WebUI.

In practice

• Use "snow init" for project scaffolding.
• Define ".gitignore" for Snowflake CLI state and build artifacts.
• Push Snowpark UDF changes to GitHub for versioning.

Topics

• Snowflake CLI
• Snowpark
• Git
• GitHub Actions
• CI/CD
• UDF Deployment

Code references

• nazeer-codehub/snowflake-cli

Best for: MLOps Engineer, Machine Learning Engineer, Data Engineer

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Editorial summary, takeaway, and curation by AIssential. Original article published by Data Engineering on Medium.