Default Pull Request tasks for release branches

[Aaron Sterling]

Thank you for the new Default Task feature in Pull Requests. For our use case, it's a higher priority to have default tasks in release branches only, as a final sanity check before going into production. Is this on your roadmap?

[Patrik S · Accepted solution]

Hello @Aaron Sterling ,

Thank you for reaching out to Atlassian Community.

The Default Tasks configured in Repository settings apply to all branches, regardless of the branch name. I'm afraid that it's currently not possible to define Default Tasks to a specific branch naming/pattern, so I went ahead and raised a feature request to implement this functionality: 

• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/BCLOUD-22124

I would suggest you to add your vote there, since this helps both developers and product managers to understand the interest. Also, make sure you add yourself as a watcher in case you want to receive first-hand updates from that ticket. Please note that all features are implemented with this policy in mind.

Thank you, @Aaron Sterling .

Kind regards,

Patrik S

[Aaron Sterling]

Voted and watched. Thank you!

[dianakoenraadt]

Patrik, you write: "The Default Tasks configured in Repository settings apply to all branches, regardless of the branch name. "

I'm sorry but this is not true. The Default pull request tasks page explicitly states

"The following tasks will be added on new pull requests by default. Note that default tasks are not created for pull requests based on release branches."

Can this please be changed so that release branches also get these tasks? I've just created a release PR and the tasks are not there.

[Ozgur Vatansever]

@Patrik S  What is the reason behind disabling PR tasks for only release branches?

It says:

The following tasks will be added on new pull requests by default. Note that default tasks are not created for pull requests based on release branches.

[Michael Rüegg _Mibex Software_]

If you do not mind a separate app, you can achieve this with our Checklist Buddy for Bitbucket Cloud.

It uses configuration as code for the definition of the default task rules, which allows reviewing changes by peers, tracking changes over time and all the other benefits Git has over UI-based configurations.

To restrict default tasks for certain branches, you can use this syntax:

--target release/* +task+ Release notes ready?

Besides the configuration of the source/target branch, it is also able to create content-dependent default tasks, e.g.

--files /app/*.jsx +task+ UI changes visually inspected on IE/Edge

creates the default task only if the PR contains any React JSX files.
For more information, please check the app documentation.

[Aaron Sterling]

Thanks very much. I'll leave the question open, in case Atlassian wants to comment about their roadmap. We'll take a look at your app for sure.

[Joseph Duncan]

Has anyone been able to figure out why Atlassian didn't enable tasks on release branch?  I have been searching and I can't find an answer.  I have a use case where this is needed and there are no options to automatically add it besides 3rd party.

[dianakoenraadt]

@Joseph Duncan Currently, I see tasks appearing on release branches just fine.

However, for a brief period in time, tasks failed to appear for me as well. It seemed (but I know how stupid it sounds and I doubt myself as I write this even though I am sure this is exactly what I did because I did it multiple times) that if I removed the word "release" from the PR title before pressing Create, that the tasks did appear. I.e. I changed the title to something neutral like "PR". Then, I pressed Create. The PR was created with release tasks. Then, I manually edited the PR title.

Anyway, if tasks on release branches don't appear, there is some specific condition that is causing it, because currently, for all our release branches, the tasks do appear.

Hope it helps somewhat.

[Joseph Duncan]

@dianakoenraadt - on my PR in bb cloud, I have a PR from feature to release branch, the PR is named the jira task only but the task does not create.  There must be something different in the way you have your release branches configured.