Change Branch Point for JIRA-created issues

Zachary Boerner October 26, 2015

We currently integrate JIRA and Bitbucket server together for our development, and we pretty close to a 1-1 mapping between JIRA projects and Bitbucket projects.  My question is that when a user goes to create a branch from a New Feature, it seems to default to branching from the master branch, even though we use the git-flow branching model with feature branches.  Additionally, Improvements, which are a default issue type in the JIRA templates, tries to produce a bugfix branch.

Where can I change these mappings?

EDIT: Additionally, when we try to merge them back in, they all seem to try merging into the production branch, not the development branch.

1 answer

1 accepted

2 votes
Answer accepted
Steffen Opel _Utoolity_
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
October 26, 2015

Update

Seems I have misread your question as related to Bitbucket Cloud (despite the definite tag), sorry about that.

Fortunately Bitbucket Server features a more pronounced Branching Model that makes it easy for each member of your team to use a branching workflow for your Git development process:

Your workflow can be mapped to branches in the Bitbucket Server 'branching model', allowing Bitbucket Server to:

  • guide your developers into making consistent naming decisions when creating branches.
  • identify the type of each branch and apply actions like automatic merging accordingly.

Notably, Bitbucket Server allows you to Configure the branching model to define the branch workflow for each repository:

As a project administrator, configuring the model lets you:

  • enable the branch types that will be available in your workflow.
  • specify the naming convention to be used for each branch type. 

The naming convention simply adds prefixes to branch names, so that branches of the same type get the same prefix.

As further outlined on that page, Bitbucket Server makes a number of branch types available:

  • Development
  • Feature
  • Production
  • Release
  • Bugfix
  • Hotfix

Aside from configuring the prefix so that the appropriate branches are mapped you can also Use the checkboxes to enable just those branch types that map to your workflow.



Initial Answer

The most relevant setting regarding your workflow seems to be the 'Main branch' of a Bitbucket Cloud repository, which you can change from a repository's 'Settings' page. It indeed defaults to 'master' for Git repositories for example, so even after e.g. initializing Git flow via SourceTree, one still needs to adjust said 'Main branch' manually to henceforth use the 'develop' branch and achieve the desired workflow defaults:

  1. Select the repository
  2. Go to 'Settings'
  3. Go to 'Repository details' in the 'General' section
  4. Adjust the 'Main branch' as desired

 

Zachary Boerner October 26, 2015

Hmm. I guess that sort of stopgaps this particular issue, but I feel like the branching model should force some element of where branches are created and merged back into. For instance, hotfixes should always come off of the release branch. I'm curious why there are two separate options for what constitutes the "main" branch. Thanks for your response.

Steffen Opel _Utoolity_
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
October 26, 2015

@Zachary Boerner - Seems I have misread your question as related to Bitbucket Cloud, sorry about that. Bitbucket Server features a more versatile branching model, I have updated my answer accordingly.

Zachary Boerner October 26, 2015

So I have all of that in place, but it doesn't cover the JIRA link. The main issue at play is that a JIRA improvement will map correctly to a feature branch, but the branching point will be based on the "Main Branch" that you mention in your original answer (so this is an improvement). However, something like a hotfix would need to be tied to the release branch, and I can't find anything that forces the branch point to be different based on the branching model type. I just took another quick look at the Branch Permissions portion of the configuration and it doesn't have what I'm looking for, either. Thanks for your update.

Steffen Opel _Utoolity_
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
October 26, 2015

I see, makes sense - I'm not aware of an option to tie the branch point to the issue type for example (similar to how the branch type and name are inferred), even though it would be an obvious improvement accordingly. You might want to watch/vote/comment on https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/BSERV-2491 to raise the priority for this kind of branching model granularity.

Zachary Boerner October 27, 2015

Thanks for pointing me towards that issue. You've been a great help.

Suggest an answer

Log in or Sign up to answer
TAGS
AUG Leaders

Atlassian Community Events