I think this is an interesting idea, I’m hoping we can get more folks to check it out. If there isn’t a lot of feedback on the dev list we should bring it up at the next community meeting
On Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 7:37 PM Yingjian Wu <[email protected]> wrote: > Hey all, > > Following up on the proposal above. > > TL;DR: I’m proposing *branch-specific schema evolution* so Iceberg > branches can evolve schemas independently instead of sharing a single > global schema. This enables: > > - Safe schema experimentation and migration testing on branches > without impacting production > - schema changes are isolated and only merged back when semantics are > unambiguous > > To support this, we’d need a spec change: add an optional *schemaId* to > *SnapshotRef* to record which schema a branch ref points to. > > More details can be found in this proposal doc > <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yzE3Mm_ZALdWv_5HlMlGL0sk4-G4zU9oqxdo2ufQi3I/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.g7zu7nim8ekj> > and > here is the Draft PR <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/pull/15012> for > the high level direction I am going. > > Looking forward to the feedback, thanks! > > Best, > Yingjian > > On Mon, 12 Jan 2026 at 15:23, Yingjian Wu <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hey all, >> >> I'd like to start a discussion about supporting schema evolution on >> Iceberg branches, as there are some interests and some discussions around >> this feature. >> >> Would appreciate feedback on this proposal doc >> <https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yzE3Mm_ZALdWv_5HlMlGL0sk4-G4zU9oqxdo2ufQi3I/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.g7zu7nim8ekj> >> and >> here is the Draft PR <https://github.com/apache/iceberg/pull/15012> for >> the high level direction I am going. >> >> Best, >> Yingjian >> >
