diff --git a/dev-tools/ci b/dev-tools/ci
index 765d9a8bd0b..73f8c6b876e 100755
--- a/dev-tools/ci
+++ b/dev-tools/ci
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-#!/bin/sh
+#!/bin/bash
 # This script is used as a single command to run the x-plugins tests.
 #
 # It will attempt to check out 'elasticsearch' into a sibling directory
@@ -13,9 +13,7 @@
 
 # Turn on semi-strict mode
 set -e
-if [ -n "$BASH" ]; then
-    set -o pipefail
-fi
+set -o pipefail
 
 # Allow the user choose different test through a single cli arg
 # default to `check` if no argument has been supplied
@@ -23,12 +21,12 @@ key=${1-check}
 case $key in
     packagingTest)
         GRADLE_OPT_STRING="--info -Pvagrant.boxes=all :x-plugins:qa:vagrant:packagingTest"
-        break;;
+        ;;
     check)
         GRADLE_OPT_STRING="--info check -Dtests.network=true -Dtests.badapples=true"
-        break;;
+        ;;
     *)
-        echo "Unsupported cli argument $1. Allowed parameters are packagingTest or check. No argument defaults to check."
+        echo "Unsupported cli argument $1. Allowed arguments are packagingTest or check. No argument defaults to check."
         exit 1;;
 esac
 
@@ -36,23 +34,23 @@ SCRIPT="$0"
 
 # SCRIPT may be an arbitrarily deep series of symlinks. Loop until we have the concrete path.
 while [ -h "$SCRIPT" ] ; do
-  ls=`ls -ld "$SCRIPT"`
+  ls=$(ls -ld "$SCRIPT")
   # Drop everything prior to ->
-  link=`expr "$ls" : '.*-> \(.*\)$'`
+  link=$(expr "$ls" : '.*-> \(.*\)$')
   if expr "$link" : '/.*' > /dev/null; then
     SCRIPT="$link"
   else
-    SCRIPT=`dirname "$SCRIPT"`/"$link"
+    SCRIPT=$(dirname "$SCRIPT")/"$link"
   fi
 done
 
 # determine base directory
-BASE_DIR=`dirname "$SCRIPT"`/..
+BASE_DIR=$(dirname "$SCRIPT")/..
 
 # make BASE_DIR absolute
-BASE_DIR=`cd "$BASE_DIR"; pwd`
+BASE_DIR=$(cd "$BASE_DIR"; pwd)
 
-PARENT_DIR=`cd "$BASE_DIR"/..; pwd`
+PARENT_DIR=$(cd "$BASE_DIR"/..; pwd)
 
 # go to the parent directory
 cd $PARENT_DIR