CLI Reference

WikiTicket SDD — CLI Reference

Complete reference for bin/worklog. For concepts and workflows, start with the User Guide; for the Claude Code plugin, see the Plugin Guide.

Global flags

Flag	Meaning
--actor <name>	Who caused the event (defaults to $USER). Recorded on every event; goes before the subcommand: bin/worklog --actor alice update …
--version	Print the CLI version and exit

Subcommands

add

Create a work item. Prints the new item's ULID.

bin/worklog add "Extract auth middleware" --level task --kind feature \
    --milestone v0.7.0 --priority P1 --parent 01J8WZZ100 --labels backend,auth

Flag	Values	Default
<title>	positional, required	—
--level	epic story task subtask	task
--kind	feature bug ops triage	omitted — the item folds to triage
--milestone <m>	free string (e.g. v0.7.0)	none
--type	deprecated alias for --level/--kind	—
--priority	P0 P1 P2 P3	P2
--parent <ulid>	parent item (bugs may float free of any epic)	none
--plan <path>	plan doc that produced it	none
--labels a,b	comma-separated	none
--unplanned	flag; requires --discovered-during	—
--discovered-during <ulid>	what the unplanned work interrupted	—

Taxonomy rules are checked at write time (see the work taxonomy):

• Omitting --kind is deliberate: the fold classifies the item triage — it never silently becomes feature.
• --level epic --kind bug (or triage) fails: worklog: an epic cannot be kind:bug — epics are feature or ops (taxonomy §2.2)
• --level epic --milestone … fails: worklog: milestone lives on leaves; epic milestones are derived (taxonomy §2.5)
• --unplanned without --discovered-during fails: worklog: --unplanned requires --discovered-during (section 5.4)
• --type still works — it maps to the same (level, kind) pair the fold applies to old events (bug → task/bug, the rest → feature) and prints on stderr: worklog: --type is deprecated; use --level/--kind. See the migration note.

update

Change status, priority, title, kind, milestone, or labels on an open item.

bin/worklog update 01J8X0M2QQ --status in_progress --kind bug --add-label urgent

Flag	Values
<item>	positional ULID, required
--status	todo in_progress blocked
--priority	P0–P3
--title	new title
--kind	feature bug ops triage
--milestone <m>	free string
--add-label a,b / --del-label a,b	comma-separated

At least one change flag is required. --kind/--milestone are validated against the item's current level with the same taxonomy rules (and error messages) as add — you cannot update an epic to kind:bug or put a milestone on it.

close

Close an item as done or cancelled.

bin/worklog close 01J8X0M2QQ --status done --resolution "merged in PR #7"

--status is done (default) or cancelled; --resolution is optional free text. Closing is just an event — nothing moves files at runtime.

link

Attach an external identity (ticket key, URL) to an item as a link event. Sync calls this for you; it's here for manual wiring.

bin/worklog link 01J8X0M2QQ --system github --key "owner/repo#412" --url <url>

--system and --key are required; --url, --rev, --hash optional.

ingest

Record a remote-originated change (pull side). The event ID is deterministic — built from --system/--key/--rev — so identical polls dedupe across clones. Accepts level, kind, and milestone (plus status, priority, title, …) in --set FIELD=VALUE. Normally the sync dispatcher runs this, not you.

bin/worklog ingest 01J8X0M2QQ --system github --key "owner/repo#412" \
    --rev 2026-07-18T16:02:11Z --rev-ts-ms 1789142531000 --set status=in_progress

conflict

Record a sync conflict on a field (the dispatcher emits these when local and remote both changed). The fold files it under _conflicts until a later write clears it. Flags: --field, --local, --remote, --remote-rev, all required.

resolve

Resolve the last open conflict on a field:

bin/worklog resolve 01J8X0M2QQ --field status --take local

--take local re-asserts the local value; --take remote accepts the remote one. Either way it's a normal update event that outsorts the conflict, so the fold clears it. Open conflicts surface in worklog list (stderr warning), worklog show, and the status report.

wiki-add

Register a document in the wiki publish set used by the wiki-publish skill.

bin/worklog wiki-add docs/plans/2026-07-18-work-taxonomy.md \
    --key work-taxonomy --title "Work taxonomy plan"

list

List open items, sorted by priority. --all includes closed ones.

bin/worklog list --all

Output: short id, priority, status, external key (or -), title. Prints a warning to stderr if any items carry unresolved sync conflicts.

show

Print one item's full folded state as JSON. Accepts a unique id prefix.

bin/worklog show 01J8X0M2

fold

Print the full folded state of every item (open and closed) as JSON. The read-only building block other tooling (like the plan-next skill) consumes.

bin/worklog fold

promote

Promote a classifier suggestion from .work/suggestions.jsonl into exactly one create event, then mark the suggestion consumed so it is never re-proposed. The proposed level/kind/milestone are honored as proposed (including triage) and pass the same taxonomy checks as add.

bin/worklog promote <suggestion-id>

See the classifier — the classifier is propose-only and off by default; promote is the only path from a suggestion to the event log.

plan-capture

Turn an approved plan into a frozen plan doc plus tracked items: one epic, one item per - [ ] task under a ## Tasks heading (indented checkboxes become subtasks; a (P0)–(P3) token sets priority). Writes docs/plans/<YYYY-MM-DD>-<slug>.md and prints the path and the epic ULID.

bin/worklog plan-capture --slug auth-refactor --title "Auth refactor" --file plan.md

Flag	Meaning
--slug	required; kebab-case, becomes the filename
--title	required; the epic's title
--file	plan markdown (reads stdin if omitted)
--priority	epic priority, default P1

Refuses to overwrite an existing plan file — plans are never rewritten; pick a new slug to supersede.

roadmap-render

Regenerate docs/roadmap.md from the log. Run it after any item change and commit the roadmap together with the log.

bin/worklog roadmap-render

roadmap-snapshot

Freeze the current roadmap as a dated snapshot: copies docs/roadmap.md to docs/roadmap/<YYYY-MM-DD>_<name>.md.

bin/worklog roadmap-snapshot --name v0.2-roadmap

Snapshots are frozen — the command refuses to overwrite an existing snapshot file. docs/roadmap.md stays the live, regenerated view; snapshots are the "what did the roadmap say at release time" record.

sync

Run ticket sync through the typed adapter contract. The dispatcher (bin/sync_dispatch.py) owns every invariant — scope, canonical hash-skip, create-vs-update, idempotency markers, echo suppression on pull, conflict detection; the per-system adapter is a dumb translator (see adapter below). No adapter configured → the run is local-only, which is a mode, not an error.

bin/worklog sync --dry-run

Flag	Meaning
--dry-run	Report what would happen; write nothing
--keys k1,k2	Restrict the run to specific external keys
--push-only / --pull-only	One direction only (mutually exclusive)
--retry-base-delay <s>	Base backoff for transient adapter failures

Every run ends with the drift report — one counts line plus a drift: list of anything a human should see (conflicts, unsupported fields on the platform, deferred items, degraded mappings):

sync report: created=1 updated=2 closed=1 skipped=14 pulled=1 conflicts=0 deferred=0
drift:
  - fields not synced on github: depends_on

adapter

bin/worklog adapter init prints the authoring path for a new adapter: adapters are adapted from the shipped worked example (adapters/github/adapter), never written from scratch — read adapters/README.md, have the model generate one for your ticketing.system, then validate it. bin/worklog adapter check [path] validates an adapter against the contract (schema/*.schema.json) in a throwaway sandbox; nothing activates until adapter check is green. With no path it checks the adapter for the configured system, falling back to the shipped fake (the CI test double).

adr

Architecture Decision Records in docs/adr/NNNN-slug.md, schema-validated front matter (schema/adr.schema.json).

bin/worklog adr new "Green-gates merge policy" --status proposed \
  --deciders rick,claude --tags ci,process --supersedes 2
bin/worklog adr list
bin/worklog adr check

adr new <title> picks the next 4-digit number, scaffolds the file (front matter plus Context / Decision / Consequences sections), registers it in the wiki-publish ledger (key adr/NNNN-slug, page ADR-NNNN-slug, republish-on-change), and prints the path. Flags: --status (default proposed), --deciders a,b, --tags x,y, --supersedes N. adr list prints an id / status / title table. adr check validates every ADR — schema, unique ids, filename↔front-matter agreement, consistent supersedes/superseded_by pairs, required body sections — and exits nonzero naming each problem; the pre-commit hook runs it whenever docs/adr/ exists.

status

Generate a status report from the log.

bin/worklog status --kind weekly --write

--kind is daily, weekly, or timecard. By default it prints; --write saves docs/status/<date>-<kind>.md (frozen once published — corrections go in the next report), --emit-facts prints the underlying JSON facts, --since/--until override the window, --dry-run previews, --force overwrites an unpublished draft.

compact

Compact the event log per spec §7, verifying fold(new) == fold(old) before writing. Requires --yes. Meant for CI (a nightly job on the main branch), not day-to-day use — compaction is also what physically migrates old type events to level/kind.

Git hooks

Installed via git config core.hooksPath hooks (done for you by /worklog:init). Both hooks run the same checks:

• hooks/pre-commit — on every commit:
  1. Every .work/*.jsonl file ends with a trailing newline (the invariant that keeps union merge safe).
  2. Every log line parses as JSON and carries the required event fields (ev, ts, actor, op, and item except on compact events).
  3. docs/roadmap.md is fresh: the hook regenerates it and diffs — a stale or hand-edited roadmap blocks the commit (Run: worklog roadmap-render).
  4. The fold test suite passes (only in repos that carry tests/).
• hooks/pre-merge-commit — the same script. Git does not run pre-commit for merge auto-commits, so without this a merge could silently land a stale roadmap or a smuggled corrupt line. If it blocks your merge: bin/worklog roadmap-render && git add -A && git commit --no-edit.

CI runs the same script on every push and PR, so bypassing the local hook with --no-verify only defers the failure.

Invariants worth knowing

• Merging is gated by merge-when-green.sh, and auto-merge on green is on by default; teams that want a human on the trigger set features.auto_merge_on_green: false in .work/config.yml (advisory mode: the script reports green, a human merges).
• Never hand-edit .work/*.jsonl — no editors, no echo >>. The CLI's append() is the only writer; it does a single atomic newline-terminated write and self-heals a missing trailing newline left by a hand edit.
• Never hand-edit docs/roadmap.md. It's generated; change the work items and re-render.
• Every .jsonl write is newline-terminated. A missing final newline is how two events fuse into one corrupt, unparseable line.
• Item bodies are capped at 2 KB in the log (keeps appends atomic under PIPE_BUF). Longer prose belongs in the plan doc.
• --type is deprecated. It maps to level/kind and warns on stderr; prefer the new flags. Old events in the log stay valid — the fold normalizes them on load.