Not sure if this is a bug or if it's intentional behavior, but either way I don't remember it being a problem before we switched to Pro 3.1 (our current version).
See this post for further details Pro 3.1.3: Running an update cursor on a feature l... - Esri Community
To summarize, I had a tool I was running involving an update cursor, and it kept failing because of a lock on the data.
- It was in a file geodatabase on my own hard drive, so no one else had access.
- The data was only used in this project, which was the only project I had open.
- I was not in an edit session.
I eventually figured out that having the attribute table open constitutes a lock on the data, at least in the context of a Python Toolbox. Closing the table immediately solved the issue.
The Python Window doesn't seem to be affected, and I have not tested in Notebooks or Scripting tools in an atbx.
Please remove this behavior.