What does the "Main branch" settings in Repository details means?

Question

We noticed that if we change Main branch, if you create a new branch, then. the Main branch is the default "destination" when you want to merge it back. Is this the only use for the Main branch setting?

Is there any problem in making our "Main branch" the "Development" branch instead of "master"?

Stephan Pauxberger_1thcdp · Answer

Actually, there is a rather unexpected behaviour change for the main branch, which I did not find documented anywhere:

When looking a commit, normally Bitbucket shows all branches containing that commit in the top right corner (same as "git branch --contains <commit>").

However, when the main branch is part of that list, *only* the main branch is shown there (and reported back by the rest api via branch-utils/info.

Took me a while to find this as the cause of problems in our application

jredmond · Answer

Bitbucket Cloud calls it "main branch", since new Mercurial repos have "default" instead of "master".

Geoff Wilson · Answer

Just as you two have commented on, in Bitbucket 4.8.5 there is no "main" branch setting, however there is the Default Branch setting on the same Repository Details page with the description:

Select the default branch for browsing and cloning the repository. Git chooses the "master" branch by default.

Therefore, just as you suspected, it should not have any undesired effects by setting this to Development, especially if you're worried about accidentally committing or merging into the Master.