Can you allow branch creation but restrict direct commits on release branches (enforce PR-only merge

Thonupunoori_ Vamshi

Hi Community,

We have the following requirement in Bitbucket Cloud:

• Developers should be able to create release/* branches
• However, direct commits/pushes to release/* branches should be blocked
• All changes must go through a Pull Request from a feature branch before they can land on a release branch

Our DevOps team believes this is not possible in Bitbucket Cloud— but I wanted to confirm with the community before ruling it out.

Specifically, I'm looking for:

1. Can Branch Permissions be configured to block direct pushes to release/* while still allowing branch creation?
2. Can the "Prevent changes without a Pull Request" restriction be applied to release/* branches?
3. Are there any Merge Checks (e.g., required approvals, passing builds) that can be layered on top?

Any guidance, configuration steps, or official documentation references would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance.

Saxea _Flowie_

Hi @Thonupunoori_ Vamshi ,

This is indeed not possible out of the box. To address your questions:

1. No, it is a write permission which doesn't distinguish between commits and new branches.

2. Yes, but you need to create the branch first in order to reference it in the PR.

3. No, the checks apply to the PR only.

We provide an Bitbucket app, Flowie, that supports the workflow you described out the box. This page describes the problem and how Flowie solves it. You can either use the app, or implement somthing similar yourself.