We use deployment pipelines to push reports from DEV to TEST to PROD workspaces in Power BI Service.
Report Developers have Member permission on the DEV and TEST workspaces and have Contributor permission on the PROD workspaces. Report Developers are also pipeline admins with the Deployment Pipeline associated with the DEV, TEST, PROD workspaces.
Report Developers can use the Deployment Pipeline to publish from DEV to TEST.
However, they don't have permission in the Pipeline to publish from TEST to PROD.
If they are a pipeline admin and have contributor on the workspace, isn't this enough to publish to PROD using the Deployment Pipeline?