data promotion not working

tried to create a product in a dev sandbox and push it up using the data deployment in dx inspector. I was able to add the product via the data tab, but when i tried to deploy it, there was an error about it being an empty commit. I added some random metadata (report type) to the work item and was able to promote it, but the product didn't show up in the promoted to environment.

error message: {"errorType":"DEPLOYMENT_FAILURE","errorMessage":"No components to deploy — the resolved component set was empty. Verify that the changed metadata entries match files in the project directory."}

also maybe i'm misunderstanding how the data deployment functionality is supposed to work as i've never used a proper data deployment tool. Would love some clarity here if this is expected and i'm using it incorrectly or if this is a bug