Pull requests provide an easy way for developers to review changes on a branch, discuss changes, and merge the branch into the main development branch. The goal is to be fast and simple. Today we are adding two new capabilities to pull requests that will make your workflow faster and simpler:
- Selectively add reviewers to your proposed changes
- Receive email notifications for only the pull requests that interest you
Adding Reviewers
You can now explicitly add reviewers when creating or editing a pull request. This will notify your reviewers that you have created a pull request and you would like them to review your code – this is a good way to request that key stake holders look over your change before it gets pulled in.
“Reviewers” will be listed out next to the pull request author, along with anyone else who has commented or approved the pull requests. From there, with a single click, a reviewer can “Approve” the proposed changes. Think of this as a light-weight approval process.
On the Bitbucket team, once two developers have approved a pull request, anyone on our team can accept and merge the pull request.
Smarter Notifications
Bitbucket has probably been sending you too many notifications. Starting today, you will only receive pull request notifications for repositories you have write access to and are following, a small change with a potentially big impact on how many emails you receive.
You can also start and stop watching individual pull requests, which will subscribe or unsubscribe you to future email updates when a new comment or commit occurs.
Commenting on, or approving a pull request will automatically add you as a watcher. We’ve also made it simple to stop following a pull request directly from your email notification – all pull request emails now include a single click “stop watching” link to help you declutter your inbox.
For existing pull requests we did not want to assume notification preferences. For any pull request created before today Bitbucket will follow the old notification rules, though you can now start or stop watching individually.
More to Come
This is the first major release in an ongoing project to overhaul notifications in Bitbucket. Over the coming weeks keep your eye out for HTML emails, a notification preference center, and other goodies to improve the way you interact with your team.
