Summary
basecamp cards update <id> --body '<html>' silently fails to update the card content. The API call succeeds (no error) but the content is not saved — it either stays unchanged or gets set to <p>-</p>.
Steps to reproduce
# This appears to succeed but doesn't actually update the content:
basecamp cards update 9786630080 --project 41746046 --body '<p>Hello <code>world</code></p>'
# Verify — content is unchanged:
basecamp cards show 9786630080 --project 41746046 --json | jq .content
# Returns the old content, not the new HTML
Expected behavior
The card's content field should be updated to the provided HTML string, matching what basecamp api put "buckets/{project}/card_tables/cards/{id}.json" -d '{"content":"<p>Hello</p>"}' does (which works correctly).
Actual behavior
The --body flag value is silently ignored. The API response shows Content: - in the CLI output. The raw API workaround confirms the API itself accepts the content fine — the issue is in how the cards update command maps --body to the API request.
Workaround
Use the raw API directly:
basecamp api put "buckets/{project}/card_tables/cards/{id}.json" \
-d '{"content":"<p>Hello <code>world</code></p>"}'Impact
This caused data loss in production — a card's original content (including embedded screenshots and video) was overwritten with <p>-</p> when attempting to update the body via the CLI. The silent failure made it difficult to diagnose.
Related: #410 (stdin support for body arguments across all write commands)
Summary
basecamp cards update <id> --body '<html>'silently fails to update the card content. The API call succeeds (no error) but the content is not saved — it either stays unchanged or gets set to<p>-</p>.Steps to reproduce
Expected behavior
The card's
contentfield should be updated to the provided HTML string, matching whatbasecamp api put "buckets/{project}/card_tables/cards/{id}.json" -d '{"content":"<p>Hello</p>"}'does (which works correctly).Actual behavior
The
--bodyflag value is silently ignored. The API response showsContent: -in the CLI output. The raw API workaround confirms the API itself accepts the content fine — the issue is in how thecards updatecommand maps--bodyto the API request.Workaround
Use the raw API directly:
Impact
This caused data loss in production — a card's original content (including embedded screenshots and video) was overwritten with
<p>-</p>when attempting to update the body via the CLI. The silent failure made it difficult to diagnose.Related: #410 (stdin support for body arguments across all write commands)