Diff and Checkout

Review pull request changes with local checkout and diff tooling.

Global options available on all PR commands: --json [fields], --jq <expression>, --no-color, -w, --workspace, -r, --repo.

bb pr checkout

Check out a pull request’s source branch locally.

bb pr checkout <id> [options]

Arguments

Argument	Description
id	Pull request ID

Options

Option	Description
-w, --workspace <workspace>	Workspace
-r, --repo <repo>	Repository
--json	Output as JSON

Examples

# Checkout PR #42 to review locally
bb pr checkout 42

# Checkout PR from specific repository
bb pr checkout 42 -w myworkspace -r myrepo

Notes

The command, in order:

1. Fetches the latest changes from the remote
2. Checks out the pull request’s source branch
3. If that checkout fails, creates a local branch pr-<id> tracking origin/<source-branch>

--json returns { success, pullRequestId, branch, pullRequest }, where branch is whichever of the two names was checked out.

---

bb pr diff

View the diff of a pull request in unified diff format.

bb pr diff [id] [options]

Arguments

Argument	Description
id	Pull request ID (optional - auto-detects from current branch)

Options

Option	Description
-w, --workspace <workspace>	Workspace
-r, --repo <repo>	Repository
--color <when>	Colorize output: auto, always, never (default: auto)
--name-only	Show only names of changed files
--stat	Show diffstat (files changed, insertions, deletions)
--web	Open diff in web browser
--json	Output as JSON

Examples

# View diff for PR #42
bb pr diff 42

# Auto-detect PR from current branch
bb pr diff

# Show only changed file names
bb pr diff 42 --name-only

# Show statistics (like git diff --stat)
bb pr diff 42 --stat

# Open diff in browser
bb pr diff 42 --web

# Return browser URL as JSON
bb pr diff 42 --web --json

# Disable colors for piping to file or other commands
bb pr diff 42 --color never > pr-42.patch

# Get diffstat as JSON for scripting
bb pr diff 42 --stat --json

--stat output:

src/index.ts | +12 -3
src/utils.ts | +4
docs/README.md | -8

3 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)

Notes

• When no ID is provided, the command searches for an open pull request whose source branch matches your current git branch
• --color auto colors the diff only when stdout is a terminal: green for additions, red for deletions, cyan for hunk headers. Whole lines are colored by their leading marker — there is no language-aware highlighting
• --color never forces plain text, which is what you want when redirecting to a file or piping into another command. The global --no-color flag does the same for every command
• The value is validated before the request. A typo fails with --color must be one of: auto, always, never plus a (Did you mean never?) suggestion, rather than silently falling back
• Passing --color <when> at all turns the global color setting on, because the CLI resolves color by scanning raw argv for a --color token. bb pr diff 42 --color never still leaves the diff body uncolored, but it overrides --no-color and NO_COLOR for everything else that invocation prints. See Global Flags → Precedence summary
• -w is the global short alias for --workspace. To open the diff in a browser you must spell out --web
• For opening other Bitbucket pages (PR detail, files, commits, pipelines, settings) in the browser, see bb browse