How to prevent changes without a pull request to hotfix and release branches?

Question

Having recently migrated from Bitbucket Server to Cloud we found some subtly inconsistent branch permission functionality. Specifically there's no permission equivalent to Prevent Changes without a pull request. The only way I found to mandate a pull request is by not assigning write access to these branches. Problem is that Write access is required to create hotfix and release branches, a task normally processed by one of the developers since adopting gitflow 8 years ago...

The only solution so far is assign write permission for these branches another user that doesn't usually commit changes. Why doesn't Cloud offer the same robust function as Server?

Bitbucket Server

Mark C · Answer

Hi @Chris Jones

Unfortunately, it is not possible to allow branch creation without write permission.

The best practice that I can suggest is to protect certain branches from rewriting history and only accept changes via pull requests.

For example, if you have staging and production branches, what you can do is protect those two branches that only certain people who can write to those branches and merge pull requests.

This means other users can create their own branch (e.g. hotfix etc.), push their changes to their own branch then create a pull request from their own branch staging. Once staging branch is in a good condition, you can then merge it to the production branch via pull request.

This is usually the standard Git feature workflow.

Regards,
Mark C

Chris Jones · Answer

thanks @Saxea _Flowie_ i will have a look at the app.

Chris Jones · Answer

hi @Mark C this only works if we don't assign write permission. The problem is that write permission is required to create the release and hotfix branches. Or is there another way to do that? (I almost named this post how to allow branch creation without write permission).

This is not a problem for say the develop branch that is persistent so write is not required. Every release has a new branch per the gitflow model.

thanks, Chris