glab(1)

🌸 glab(1) — the glab work-items update glow-up guide 🌸

okay bestie, you're looking at glab-work-items-update — the command that updates work items in a project or group 💅 (it's marked EXPERIMENTAL, and we'll get to why that matters in a sec)

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

glab work-items update  [flags]

(yes there really are two spaces there, that's not me being chaotic, that's canon 🎀)

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

The way this command works is genuinely iconic: it uses your repository context to detect scope automatically. no flags, no fuss, it just knows 🧚

Use --group to target a group or subgroup. and heads up — --group and --repo are mutually exclusive, so pick a lane bestie, you can't have both 😭

--attach uploads a file and references it at the end of the description. Repeat the flag if you want more than one file, or pass - to read the file from standard input. And listen: without --description, the references get added to the description the work item already has instead of replacing it — so it's additive, not destructive, we love that 🫶. One thing though: uploads are project-scoped, so --attach cannot be combined with --group. no cap.

--parent accepts a work item ID in the current scope, a reference such as group/project#123, or a URL. flexible queen 👑

⚠️ okay so this is the important part: this feature is an experiment and is not ready for production use. It might be unstable or be removed at any time. For more information, see https://docs.gitlab.com/policy/development_stages_support/. don't say I didn't warn you 💀

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🦋 OPTIONS 🦋

• -a, --assignee=[] — update the work item assignee with the supplied GitLab usernames 👥
• --attach=[] — (EXPERIMENTAL) upload a file and reference it at the end of the description. Use - to read the file from standard input. Repeat the flag to attach multiple files 📎
• -d, --description="" — update the description for the work item ✍️
• --description-file="" — read the work item description from a file. Use - to read from standard input 📄
• --duedate="" — update the due date for the work item 📅
• -g, --group="" — update work items for a group or subgroup 👯
• --iteration=0 — move the work item to the iteration with this ID 🔁
• --jq="" — filter JSON output with a jq expression 🌈
• -m, --milestone="" — update the work item milestone with the title or ID 🚩
• -F, --output="text" — format output as: text, json 🎀
• --parent="" — set the parent work item by , reference, or URL. (yes, the manpage literally has a gap there before the comma — I'm not fixing it, I'm just reporting it 🙈)
• -R, --repo="" — select another repository. You can use either OWNER/REPO or GROUP/NAMESPACE/REPO. The full URL or Git URL is also accepted 🔗
• --startdate="" — update the start date for the work item 🗓️
• -t, --title="" — update the title for the work item ✏️
• -w, --weight=0 — update the weight value for the work item ⚖️

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👑 OPTIONS INHERITED FROM PARENT COMMANDS 👑

• -h, --help[=false] — show help for this command 🫶

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⭐ EXAMPLE ⭐

okay these examples ate, let's go through them 💅

# Update a work item in current project
glab work-items update 42 --description "this issue tracks a new feature"

# Update a work item in a group
glab work-items update 40 --group MYGROUP --description "this epic tracks a new feature"

# Read the description from a file
glab work-items update 42 --description-file description.md

# Read the description from standard input
cat description.md | glab work-items update 42 --description-file -

# Add a screenshot to the existing description
glab work-items update 42 --attach ./screenshot.png

# Move a work item to another iteration
glab work-items update 42 --iteration 123

# Move a work item under work item 40
glab work-items update 42 --parent 40

# Move a work item under a work item in another project
glab work-items update 42 --parent https://gitlab.com/my-group/my-project/-/work_items/40

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• glab-work-items(1) — go read the parent page too, iykyk 💜

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that's the whole thing bestie, go forth and update some work items 🌸

sign-off: this page was auto generated by spf13/cobra and dated Nov 2026 — so yeah, it's giving machine-made but we made it cute 🎀✨