Add a work-item to devops with storypoints from CLI

TLDR; az boards work-item create --type "user story" --title "some title" --project "project name" --fields "Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.StoryPoints=1" That’s the command. 😀

Can I have a little more info?

Sure, first of all, you’ll need to have the Azure CLI installed. Then you’ll need to have the Azure DevOps CLI installed. Then you’ll need to be logged in and able to use it. Here are some simple commands to check once you are good to go.

# login
az login

# list your accounts, if you have multiple
az account list

# set your subscription, if you have multiple and want to change from default
az account set --subscription "some subscription name from above"

# list projects
az devops project list --output table
# i don't create projects from CLI, but you'll need at least one, so go setup one in GUI if needed.

I normally was just creating the work-items and then opening them, but a lot of times the only thing I wanted to open them for right then was to put in the story points. I would later go back into the GUI and put in description information and all of the story points.

# create user story, and open it
az boards work-item create --type "user story" --title "some title" --project "project name" --open

# create another user story, and just put story points on it
az boards work-item create --type "user story" --title "some other title" --project "project name" --fields "Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.StoryPoints=1"

If you were using an epic or feature, you would use the Microsoft.VSTS.Scheduling.Effort field instead, at least assuming you just want to add the effort value in. And also change the --type value.

You can see the full list of default fields here, although if you add/change things it’ll be different. That page also has the http get command to get details for your particular organization and project.

That’s a lot to type out crazy man!

I hear you. But with windows terminal autocomplete it actually is not a big deal after typing it once. You can create helper functions if you want, but I generally just type it out myself. This is usually something that I personally only do if I am in the middle of something else and want to toss a work-item in really quick, but want to put my initial sizing on it. So important enough to record right then so I can put in more details later, but not so important I want to stop what I’m doing and use --open to actually add more information right at that moment.