Is it possible for a pipeline to run only after a pull request has been approved and merged?

[Adam Spain]

Right now, a pipeline runs as soon as a Pull Request is created. Meaning, it runs before the pull request has been approved or merged. This is not ideal - what if the pull request requires revisions? 

Is there a way to specify in the `bitbucket-pipelines.yml` to only deploy upon a merged pull request, rather than as soon as the PR is created? 

My current pipeline looks like this:

pipelines:
  pull-requests: # The branch pattern under pull requests defines the source branch.
    dev:
      - step:
          name: Deploy to Production
          deployment: Production
          script:
            - do stuff
            - deploy stuff
          services:
            - docker

For example, in github actions, you can do something like:

prod-push:
  if: github.event.action == 'closed' && github.event.pull_request.merged == true

[Brendon Parker]

Sounds like you want the pipeline to run off of the merge to main, not on the pull request. Something like: 

pipelines:
  branches:
    main:
      - step:
          name: Deploy to Production
          deployment: Production
          script:
            - do stuff
            - deploy stuff
          services:
            - docker

[Che Fisher]

You might want to look into building a custom Forge app using the newly minted Bitbucket events: https://bitbucket.org/blog/upcoming-changes-to-pull-requests-and-merge-check-configuration

The new `on-merge` event sounds like what you want here - once the PR is approved, hitting the merge button should trigger any on-merge checks. Technically this happens before the merge - if you really do want to hook into the merge event the existing branch trigger functionality should have you covered there.

Good luck!