How could our main branch automatically switch from master to develop ?

[Peter EVEN]

We're using gitflow and feature branching for our source code strategy. 

We recently had an issue in production where code committed to our develop branch ended up in production. This may have nothing to do with the question, but it was the starting point of our investigation. 

We quickly noticed that our bitbucket repository has mysteriously changed main branch from master to develop... So now I'm wondering how this is possible ? Can it change without any admin intervention ? And if not, where can I find a history of settings modifications ?

[Rajath Veeramanchala]

I believe one cause of such behavior is automatic merging. Some one would have switched the production and development branch resulting in automatic merging of code from develop to master. It can also depend on the merge strategy you are using.

To answer you question , this change cannot happen without any admin intervention. You can actually see the Audit log under Repository settings -> Security -> Audit log. This section will show all the changes happened to your repository settings (usually recent 500).

Hope this helps.