Coming from gh

bb is built to feel like gh, and mostly does. This page covers the places where the two differ, and the one area bb deliberately does not cover.

Where the spelling differs, the gh name usually works as an alias. The bb name is the one the documentation uses, because it names its subject in the path rather than in a flag.

Pull requests

gh	bb	Notes
gh pr create	bb pr create
gh pr list	bb pr list
gh pr view 42	bb pr get 42	bb pr view works as an alias
gh pr edit 42	bb pr update 42	bb pr edit works as an alias. Pass --version to have the update refused if the pull request changed since you read it
gh pr close 42	bb pr decline 42	bb pr close works as an alias
gh pr checks 42	bb pr build status 42	bb pr checks works as an alias
gh pr merge 42	bb pr merge 42
gh pr diff 42	bb pr diff 42
gh pr review	bb pr review approve, bb pr review unapprove, bb pr review set	set <id> <status> is the general form; approve and unapprove are the two shorthands
gh pr comment	bb pr comment add
gh pr checkout 42	bb pr checkout 42
gh pr ready 42	bb pr ready 42	--undo turns it back into a draft
gh pr status	bb pr status	The current branch's pull request, the ones you opened, and the ones waiting on your review
gh pr reopen 42	bb pr reopen 42	Reopens a declined pull request
gh pr merge 42 --auto	bb pr auto-merge enable 42	A subcommand rather than a flag: disable and get are the other two. Needs Bitbucket Data Center 8.0 or newer

Repositories

gh	bb	Notes
gh repo clone	bb repo clone
gh repo list	bb repo list
gh repo view	bb repo get	bb repo view works as an alias. The README is printed as raw markdown rather than rendered; --readme=false leaves it out. There is no --web: bb browse opens the repository
gh repo create	bb repo create
gh repo fork	bb repo fork	--project chooses where the fork lands; without it the fork goes to your personal project
gh repo delete	bb repo delete	--yes skips the confirmation, and only when the repository is named rather than inferred
gh browse	bb browse	Opens repository pages in a browser. Not to be confused with bb repo browse, which reads file content over REST rather than opening anything

Anything else

gh	bb	Notes
gh api	bb api	The same escape hatch under the same name. It speaks Bitbucket's REST API, so the paths are Bitbucket's — /rest/api/latest/... rather than GitHub's
gh completion	bb completion
gh version	bb --version
gh search repos	bb search repos	bb search commits and bb search prs are the other two. There is no code search
gh ssh-key	bb ssh-key	add, list and remove, for your own keys. bb repo ssh-key manages a project's or repository's access keys, which is a different thing
gh gpg-key	bb auth gpg-key	Under auth, not at the top level. add, list, remove and clear
gh release	—	Bitbucket Data Center has no releases. bb tag is the nearest thing, and bb browse --releases opens the tags page
gh run	—	Bitbucket Data Center runs no CI of its own. External CI reports in through build statuses: bb build and bb pr build status read them

Authentication

gh	bb	Notes
gh auth login	bb auth login <host>	The host is an argument: bb is built for self-hosted instances, so there is no default one
gh auth status	bb auth status
gh auth logout	bb auth logout
gh auth setup-git	bb auth setup-git
gh auth switch	bb auth server use	Sets which stored host is the default. bb auth server list shows them
gh auth token	—	bb auth token is not this. It manages Bitbucket HTTP access tokens on the server — create, get, list, revoke, update — and never prints the credential bb is holding. To see what bb would hand git, ask the credential helper, which prints your token in full: bb auth git-credential get

Issues are not here, and will not be

gh issue has no counterpart. Bitbucket Data Center has no issue tracker of its own — issues live in Jira, a separate product with its own API, its own permissions and its own CLI surface. Wrapping it would make bb a Jira client that happens to also talk to Bitbucket.

What bb does cover is the seam between the two: bb pr jira reports the Jira issues linked to a pull request, because that link is Bitbucket's own data.

Differences worth knowing

-R is not the repository flag. In gh, -R works everywhere. In bb the flag is --repo, and bb browse is the only command that also accepts -R. Anywhere else -R is an unknown shorthand and the command exits 2.

A repository is named by project and slug. gh addresses a repository as owner and name; bb takes --repo PROJECT/slug, because that is how a Bitbucket estate is addressed. Like gh, bb infers one from the git remotes of the directory you are in, so the flag is usually unnecessary inside a clone.

Not every command works on a repository. bb auth, bb search, bb doctor, bb ssh-key and bb project address a host, an estate or a project, and take no --repo at all. bb pr status is a mixed case: two of its three sections are cross-repository, and the third reports itself unavailable rather than failing when you are not in a checkout.

--json is a flag, not a field selector. In gh, --json takes a list of fields. In bb it takes nothing and emits the whole envelope; see Machine Mode and Diagnostics.