How To Exclude Specific Branches Using Bitbucket Branch Permissions

Controlling who can create or modify branches in a repository is a critical part of maintaining code quality and workflow discipline — especially in large teams or regulated environments.

Bitbucket Cloud provides a powerful mechanism for managing this via Branch Permissions. But what if you want to allow a pattern, like release/*, but exclude a specific branch, say release/1.3.0?

Let’s explore how Bitbucket lets you do just that.

🧪 Example Use Case

Let’s say your team wants to only allow branches that follow these patterns:

• main

• test/*

• release/*, but NOT release/1.3.0 (which may be locked for production reasons)

Here’s how you can implement this:

⚙️ Step-by-Step Branch Permission Setup

• Deny All by Default
  Create a rule for pattern * (wildcard) and set:

  • No Write access

  • No Pull Request Merge access

  This prevents branch creation/merging unless explicitly allowed by other rules.

• Allow Specific Branches
  Create branch permission rules for:

  • main → Allow Write & Merge (for desired users/groups)

  • test/* → Allow Write & Merge

  • release/* → Allow Write & Merge with exclusion for release/1.3.0

🚫 How to Exclude a Specific Branch

This is where Bitbucket gets smart.

You can exclude a specific branch from a pattern using this syntax:

release*|!release/1.3.0

This tells Bitbucket:

Match all branches starting with release, except release/1.3.0.

So your permission rule would apply to:

• ✅ release/3.0.0

• ✅ release/patch

• ❌ release/1.3.0 (explicitly excluded)

This is extremely useful for cases where a particular release branch needs to be frozen or handled by a separate process.

⚠️ Watch Out for Permission Overlap

If you define both specific and wildcard rules (e.g., one for main, one for *), Bitbucket evaluates both. In such cases:

• The most specific rule wins

• If a user is allowed in either rule, they may still gain access

Here’s an example:

🧠 Final Thoughts

Branch permissions in Bitbucket are essential for managing team workflows, and the ability to exclude specific branches using the ! operator gives you precise control.

Use patterns like:

release*|!release/1.3.0

…to enforce nuanced rules — such as protecting a hotfix or production branch from unintended changes — while still allowing flexible development around it.