Only default reviewer can't merge own PR when approval required from at least 1 default reviewer

[catapult-sam]

In my team of 3, I want to ensure a PR can't be merged unless I have reviewed it.

To do this, in branch permissions, I selected:

• "Check for at least 1 approval"
• "Check for at least 1 approval from default reviewers"
• "Prevent a merge with unresolved merge checks"

And I set myself as the only default reviewer.

Works great, I am the gatekeeper for other people's PRs, except that when it is my own PR, my approval doesn't count, so I can't merge it.

I feel like I'm missing something. Is there any way around this?

[Jason Sheedy]

Yes, this is very annoying. As a default reviewer, it also doesn't allow merge if I approve my own PR. 

I would expect the "approval from default reviewers" check should be ignored if you are yourself a default reviewer, especially if you are the ONLY default reviewer.  

[Kevin Danikowski]

Yep this is REALLY REALLY annoying, I currently turn off the merge check prevention, merge it, and turn it back on after. Because merging can take some time, you might have to waste your time waiting as well before you can switch it back. 

Sometimes I get one of my devs to create the PR for me. It's still a nuisance. 

[Max DeCurtins]

Related/similar issue: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Bitbucket-questions/Is-it-possible-for-pull-request-author-to-be-also-a-reviewer/qaq-p/228857

Basically, Atlassian seems to have thought "oh, a PR author implicitly approves their own changes, so we can turn their ability to approve off" and then didn't consider the default reviewer merge check case AT ALL.

[rohan_martin]

Wow, this absurd restriction is still in place.

I am the only full-time technical person at a startup, with contractors coming and going. I do not want to remove the merge check to prevent any contractor from merging a PR without my approval, but the majority of the time I am the only developer. I can't merge a PR even though it has been approved by 100% of the development team (ie. me).

I don't see temporarily disabling the merge prevention as an option, as I don't know when contractors will be performing reviews.

I have had to create another account for myself and use that for approving PRs, but that takes up a space in our team count.

[Antonio Lopes]

Mar 2020 - May 2023.

Ridiculous.

[Ryan Strug]

Logically it doesn't make sense that:

- You, the default reviewer, write some code and another non-default reviewer dev approves it. You cannot merge the code.

- The other dev writes some code, you approve and can then merge the code.

The same two people are involved.