Problem Statement

Currently, Bitbucket Cloud Merge Queues process pull requests on a first-in, first-out basis. There is no mechanism to prioritize urgent or time-sensitive changes (e.g., hotfixes, critical security patches) over regular PRs already in the queue. This means teams must either wait for the queue to drain or manually remove items to fast-track a critical merge — both of which are disruptive and error-prone.

Proposed Solution

Introduce the ability to assign priority levels to pull requests entering a Merge Queue. Higher-priority PRs (such as hotfixes) would be promoted ahead of lower-priority items in the queue, allowing them to be validated and merged first.

Use Case

"We should implement a priority queue to give more priority to urgent changes. Hotfix changes can be merged first based on the queue."
— Customer feedback via BTFC-115: We should implement a priority queue to give more priority to urgent changes. Hotfix changes can be ...Open

Customer Impact

Teams with active merge queues need a way to handle production-critical changes without disrupting their standard merge flow. Without this, hotfixes face unnecessary delays, increasing risk during incidents.