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April 2026

These features and Databricks platform improvements were released in April 2026.

note

Releases are staged. Your Databricks account might not be updated until a week or more after the initial release date.

Create and write to Unity Catalog tables from external Delta clients (Beta)​

April 14, 2026

The Unity REST API now supports write and create access to Unity Catalog external and managed Delta tables from external Delta clients such as Apache Spark. External Delta tables support full read, write, and create operations. Creating and writing to Unity Catalog managed Delta tables is available in Beta and requires catalog-managed commits to be enabled. See Access Databricks tables from Delta clients.

Column-level SAP governance tags sync into Unity Catalog​

April 13, 2026

Column-level personal data governance tags from SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) now sync into Unity Catalog, including fieldSemantics, isPotentiallyPersonal, and isPotentiallySensitive. Use these tags in attribute-based access control (ABAC) policies to govern access to sensitive columns. See SAP BDC semantic metadata.

Connect Lovable apps to Databricks​

April 13, 2026

You can now connect Lovable-hosted apps to your Databricks workspace to query lakehouse data using the REST API and OAuth machine-to-machine authentication. See Connect Lovable to Databricks.

Vector Search retrieval quality (Beta)​

April 13, 2026

Mosaic AI Vector Search provides built-in retrieval quality evaluation that measures and compares the relevance of different search strategies on your data. For more information, see Evaluate vector search retrieval quality.

SQL reference documentation for managing governed tags​

April 13, 2026

The Databricks SQL reference now includes documentation for five new SQL statements for managing governed tags: CREATE GOVERNED TAG, ALTER GOVERNED TAG, DROP GOVERNED TAG, DESCRIBE GOVERNED TAG, and SHOW GOVERNED TAGS.

For more information, see Create and manage governed tags.

New cascade field for deleting Unity Catalog pipelines (Beta)​

April 9, 2026

A new cascade field is available in the Pipelines DELETE API for Unity Catalog pipelines. By default, cascade=true, which preserves the existing behavior of deleting all associated materialized views, streaming tables, and views when a pipeline is deleted. Set cascade=false to retain associated tables as inactive after deletion.

See Delete a pipeline.

Share foreign Iceberg tables with Delta Sharing (Public Preview)​

April 9, 2026

You can now share foreign Iceberg tables federated from foreign Iceberg catalogs using Delta Sharing. Providers can add foreign Iceberg tables to a share, and recipients access the shared data in read-only format. See Add foreign Iceberg tables to a share.

Databricks Runtime 18.2 and Databricks Runtime 18.2 ML are in Beta​

April 8, 2026

Databricks Runtime 18.2 and Databricks Runtime 18.2 ML are now in Beta, powered by Apache Spark 4.1.0.

See Databricks Runtime 18.2 (Beta) and Databricks Runtime 18.2 for Machine Learning (Beta).

Scoped personal access tokens are now generally available​

April 8, 2026

You can now scope personal access tokens (PATs) to specific API operations, restricting tokens to only the permissions you specify. For a complete list of available scopes, see API scopes. To learn more, see Authenticate with Databricks personal access tokens (legacy).

ai_prep_search (Beta)​

April 8, 2026

ai_prep_search is now available in Beta. This SQL function transforms the structured output of ai_parse_document into search-ready chunks optimized for vector search and RAG pipelines. See ai_prep_search function.

Git-backed app deployments are now generally available​

April 7, 2026

You can now deploy Databricks apps directly from Git repositories. Configure a Git reference, specify a source code path within a repository, and optionally enforce Git-only deployments across a workspace. See Deploy from a Git repository.

Databricks Marketplace listing creation wizard​

April 6, 2026

The Marketplace provider console now features a step-by-step listing creation wizard that guides you through setting up general information, data assets, attributes, and details on separate pages. See Create a Marketplace listing.

Workspace skills for Genie Code are now available​

April 6, 2026

Workspace skills for Genie Code Agent mode are now available. Workspace admins can create shared skills that are available to everyone in the workspace. Use workspace skills for broadly useful workflows across your team, such as machine learning pipelines or domain-specific processes. See Extend Genie Code with agent skills.

SAP semantic metadata syncs automatically into Unity Catalog​

April 6, 2026

When you mount an SAP Business Data Cloud (BDC) share to a catalog, semantic metadata (such as table and column comments, primary keys, foreign keys, and governance tags) syncs automatically into Unity Catalog. You can use SAP governance tags in ABAC policies to control access to sensitive data. See SAP BDC semantic metadata.

Databricks Runtime maintenance updates (04/02)​

April 2, 2026

New maintenance updates are available for supported Databricks Runtime versions. These updates include bug fixes, security patches, and performance improvements. For details, see:

Governed tags are generally available​

April 2, 2026

Governed tags are generally available. Governed tags allow administrators to define a controlled set of tags that can be applied to Unity Catalog objects and workspace objects, helping organizations enforce consistent metadata tagging for access control, data classification, and cost tracking. See Governed tags.

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