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Is it possible to create temporary layers in ArcGIS Pro?
All layers seem to have to be created using the geodatabase format.
For example, if I want to buffer around a point do I need to create a new feature class in the geodatabase to mark the area I want buffered and then create a buffer layer that is either saved as a shapefile or feature layer in the geodatabase again?
You can write output data to memory, see: Write geoprocessing output to memory
Writing geoprocessing outputs to memory is an alternative to writing output to a geodatabase or file-based format. It is often significantly faster than writing to on-disk formats. Data written into memory is temporary and is deleted when the application is closed, so it is an ideal location to write intermediate data created in a ModelBuilder model or Python script.
But I dont know of an easy way of creating an empty "Temporary scratch layer" as in QGIS. I usually create a new feature class in the default geodatabase. (Which in ArcGIS Pro takes longer than doing the entire work/analysis in QGIS...)
