Teams are shipping more code, faster than ever, as they increasingly automate their processes with CI/CD and AI. But high-velocity pull-request workflows and large monorepos, where many PRs are merged continuously, are feeling the pain as they grow: pull requests race to merge before the branch changes again, “green” builds still break due to semantic merge conflicts, and developers are stuck babysitting merges instead of building features. The result is friction, slower releases, and too much time spent managing branch stability instead of improving the product.
Today, we are announcing the open beta of Bitbucket merge queues for Standard and Premium plans in Bitbucket Cloud. Merge queues allow teams to automate, sequence, and validate pull request merges, ensuring every change lands on a green, production-ready main branch, without last-minute breakages or endless rebases. And developers stay in the same Bitbucket pull request experience they use today, just with a smarter, automated merge path that cuts down on traffic jams, rework, and flaky releases.
What’s new: merge queues, built in
Bitbucket now automatically sequences and validates your pull requests by allowing you configure merge queues. No need for extra scripts, plugins, or manual rebases. Just open your PRs as usual, and Bitbucket does the rest:
- Queue pull requests instantly: Just queue your pull request whenever all checks on your Pull request pass.
- Keep “target branch” green: The Pull requests run against the latest target-branch code plus dependent pull-requests, and merged only when all the checks pass, keeping the target branch green and eliminating last-minute surprises.
- Stay in control: Prioritise urgent fixes, clear or drain the queue with a click.
Why it matters
Merge queues are especially valuable in high‑traffic repositories where multiple developers are frequently merging to the same target branch. For those cases, the benefits are clear:
1. Ship faster: No more waiting on manual rebases or fixing a broken main. Merge Queues automatically keep your PRs moving.
2. Reduced conflicts: Each PR is validated against the latest branch state to surface conflicts and failures early. By verifying the merge outcome before applying it, you prevent incompatible changes from breaking the target branch.
3. Improve team velocity: No more firefighting broken builds and babysitting merges. Let Bitbucket handle the queue so your team can focus on shipping features.
Getting started with merge queues
Ready to try it? Merge Queues is available now for all Standard and Premium plans in Bitbucket Cloud. Here’s how to get started:
- Make sure your repo is on a paid Bitbucket Cloud plan and Pipelines is enabled.
- In Repository settings → Workflow → Merge queues, create a queue configuring name, target branch, merge strategy and concurrency.
- Define a
merge-queuessection inbitbucket-pipelines.ymlfor your target branch. - Activate the queue once the pipeline config is in place.
- On pull requests targeting that branch, developers will see Add to merge queue, which uses the merge queue configured in the previous step.
For more details, check out the documentation.
Have questions or feedback?
Join the conversation in the Atlassian Community and share feedback, or reach out to our support team if you experience any issues. Your feedback will help shape the next iteration of Merge Queues.