The Ultimate Guide to Block Self-Merge PRs in Bitbucket 2025

We’ve all been there. You’ve just finished a small but critical bug fix. You’re confident it’s perfect. You create a pull request, give it a quick once-over yourself, type "LGTM," and hit that satisfying merge button. A few hours later, chaos erupts. The "fix" introduced a new, more subtle bug that a second pair of eyes would have caught instantly.

Approving and merging your own pull request is a classic developer anti-pattern. It sidesteps the single most important safety net in modern software development: peer review. Fortunately, Bitbucket provides powerful, built-in tools to prevent this, ensuring every line of code gets the scrutiny it deserves.

This guide will walk you through exactly why and how to block self-merges in both Bitbucket Cloud and Data Center for 2025. It's a simple change that pays massive dividends in code quality, team collaboration, and peace of mind.

Why Bother Blocking Self-Merges?

Before we dive into the "how," let's solidify the "why." Implementing this rule isn't about a lack of trust; it's about building a resilient engineering culture. Here’s what you gain:

• Unwavering Code Quality: You are inherently biased toward your own code. You know how it's supposed to work, which can make you blind to edge cases and logical flaws. A teammate brings a fresh perspective, catching everything from simple typos to complex architectural mistakes you might have missed.
• Enhanced Knowledge Sharing: Pull requests are one of the best passive learning tools for a team. When a colleague reviews your code, they learn about a new part of the system. When they leave a comment, you might learn a more efficient way to write a function. This practice breaks down knowledge silos and up-levels the entire team.
• Shared Team Accountability: When a PR requires another person's approval, it reinforces the idea that the codebase is a shared responsibility. It moves the culture away from "your code" and "my code" to "our code." This collective ownership leads to better long-term maintenance and a more collaborative environment.
• Compliance and Audit Trails: For many industries (like FinTech or HealthTech), a clear, auditable trail of review and approval is a non-negotiable compliance requirement. Proving that no code is merged without independent review is a huge win for security audits. Self-merging is a major red flag.

Blocking Self-Merges in Bitbucket Cloud (The Easy Way)

Bitbucket Cloud makes this incredibly straightforward with its built-in merge checks. You can set this up in just a few minutes per repository.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

1. Navigate to Repository Settings: Open the repository you want to protect. On the left-hand sidebar, click on Repository settings.
2. Find Branch Permissions: Under the Workflow section in the settings menu, click on Branch permissions. This is where you control who can do what to specific branches.
3. Add or Edit a Permission:
   • Click the Add a branch permission button.
   • In the "Select branches" field, choose the branch you want to protect. This is typically your main development branch (e.g., main or develop) or release branches (e.g., using a pattern like release/*).
   • Under "Merge checks" is where the magic happens. You'll want to configure two key settings.
4. Configure the Merge Checks:
   • First, check the box for "Check for a minimum number of approvals." Set the value to at least 1. This ensures no PR can be merged without an approval.
   • Next—and this is the crucial step—check the box for "Prevent the pull request author from approving their own changes."
5. Save Your Changes: Scroll down and click Save.

That's it! Now, when a developer opens a PR, they will be physically blocked from approving their own work. The merge button will remain disabled until a different team member has reviewed and approved the changes. This combination of requiring at least one approval and preventing the author from being that approver is the key to enforcing this best practice.

Tackling Self-Merges in Bitbucket Data Center/Server

For those on Bitbucket Data Center (or the older Bitbucket Server), the process can be slightly different. While it has robust merge checks, the explicit "prevent author approval" option found in Cloud isn't always available out-of-the-box in all versions. You have two primary paths: native merge checks and Marketplace apps.

Method 1: Using Native Merge Checks

The native functionality is still your first stop. You can get most of the way there by requiring approvals.

1. Navigate to Project settings or Repository settings.
2. Go to Branch permissions.
3. Add or edit a permission for your target branch (e.g., main).
4. Under the Merge checks, add the "Minimum approvals" check and set it to at least 2.

Why two? If you set it to 1, the author can still approve their own PR and then another person can merge it. By setting it to 2, you enforce that at least one other person besides the author must approve it. This is a good-enough solution for many teams, but it doesn't technically block the author's approval—it just makes it insufficient on its own.

Method 2: Leveraging Marketplace Apps for Granular Control

For true, foolproof enforcement on Bitbucket Data Center, the Atlassian Marketplace is your best friend. Apps can provide much more granular control over your workflow.

Look for powerful branch protection apps (like the popular Workzone or Control Freak). These apps extend Bitbucket's native capabilities significantly. With an app like this, you can typically configure a specific condition that says:

"The pull request author cannot be the person who merges the pull request."

The general workflow is simple:

1. Install the App: An administrator installs the chosen app from the Atlassian Marketplace.
2. Configure the Rule: Navigate to the app's configuration area within your repository or project settings.
3. Set the Condition: Create a new rule for your protected branches and add the condition to block the author from merging. You can often combine this with other powerful rules, like requiring a successful build or ensuring no unresolved tasks.
4. Apply and Save: Save the rule, and it will be enforced immediately.

Using an app is the recommended path for Data Center users who want the same level of strict, unambiguous enforcement as Bitbucket Cloud users.

Beyond the Block: Best Practices for a Healthy PR Workflow

Implementing a technical block is only half the battle. To truly benefit, you need to foster a culture that embraces the spirit of the rule.

• Communicate the 'Why': Don't just flip the switch. Announce the change to your team and explain the benefits—better quality, shared knowledge, and collective ownership. Frame it as a process improvement, not a punitive measure.
• Establish a 'Break Glass' Procedure: What about a true production-down emergency? Define a clear, documented process for bypassing the rule. This should require admin-level privileges and be used sparingly, with a post-mortem to follow.
• Champion Thorough Reviews: The goal isn't just to get an approval tick-box; it's to get a meaningful review. Encourage reviewers to pull down the branch and test it locally, question the approach, and offer constructive suggestions.
• Use a CODEOWNERS file: To streamline the process, create a CODEOWNERS file in your repository. This file automatically assigns reviewers based on the files or directories that were changed, ensuring the right people are always looped in.

Conclusion: A Small Change for a Big Impact

Blocking self-merged pull requests is one of the highest-leverage changes you can make to your development workflow. It’s a simple technical gate that enforces a profoundly positive cultural shift toward quality, collaboration, and shared responsibility.

Whether you’re on Bitbucket Cloud or Data Center, the tools are at your disposal. Take 15 minutes today to implement this in your most important repositories. Your team—and your future self, debugging less at 2 AM—will thank you for it.