Auto-merge pull request from forked repository to upstream

[Dan Finn]

We work in forks that are synchronized to an upstream repository. My team regularly creates PRs from branches on their forks to the main branch on the upstream. We would like to use auto-merge, but it does not function for PRs from forks. No error message is generated even though all requirements are met. The approved PR simply doesn't auto-merge.

We've tested this out on branches within the same repo and it works fine. While we understand that this is likely a security-based restriction by design and not a limitation, it would be ideal if either of the following could be done: 

1. Make it possible to auto-merge PRs from forks through a setting, or if not

2. Add an error message to make it clear that this is not supported.

Either way, it would also be great if you could update the Bitbucket documentation to reflect that this is not possible. 

[Ulrich Kuhnhardt _IzymesCo_]

Hi Dan

I understand that your team uses repo forks to complete work and then merge it to the upstream main repo via pull requests. That's a very common pattern and you would expect that once all merge-checks are completed, the PR should be auto-merged.

This is a common pattern for many enterprise teams - and so we have created Workzone for Bitbucket DC [1] to improve your pull request workflow, including auto-merge from forks back to the upstream repo main branch. 

Workzone covers a lot of workflow use-cases and scenarios and it might be a handy tool to automate

* adding specific reviewers based on branch and file/path patterns of PRs

* automatically merging PRs on approval, build result or task completion when all conditions are met.

I hope you can give it a shot and save your team some serious amount of time :)

LMK how you go!

Cheers, Ulrich

// Izymes

[1] https://marketplace.atlassian.com/apps/1211303/workzone-pullrequest-workflow?hosting=datacenter&tab=overview