acli jira workitem transition: InvalidPayloadException

[Shia Liu]

Our Jira allows two "Closed" statuses: "Accept" and "Cancel issue". But acli doesn't seem to have a flag that can specify which.

If I run "acli jira workitem transition --key $WORK_ITEM_KEY --status Closed", I get "Failure: $WORK_ITEM_KEY can't be transitioned: io.atlassian.micros.clibackend.exceptions.InvalidPayloadException: Please describe why do you want to Cancel this issue."

If I run "acli jira workitem transition --key $WORK_ITEM_KEY --status Accept" instead, I get "Failure: $WORK_ITEM_KEY can't be transitioned: No allowed transitions found for given status".

How can I proceed?

[Marc -Devoteam-]

Hi @Shia Liu 

Welcome to the community.

The following might work, but you need to try this.

1. Identify the correct transition ID:  you can identify the unique ID of the transition you want to execute.
2. Use the acli transition command.
   
   syntax to transition an issue: acli jira workitem transition --id <ISSUE_ID> --transition-id <TRANSITION_ID> [flags]

[Shia Liu]

This didn't work.

$ acli jira workitem transition --key $WORK_ITEM_KEY --transition-id 11

Error: unknown flag: --transition-id

[Shia Liu]

This page contains all supported flags and it doesn't have `--transition-id`: https://developer.atlassian.com/cloud/acli/reference/commands/jira-workitem-transition/

[Marc -Devoteam-]

Hi @Shia Liu 

Then this option seems to not be in place anymore.

You could raise a support request with Atlassian Support

[Ron Pieper]

Adding a related case that hits the same underlying gap.

Our workflow has a single "Closed" status, so there's no ambiguity — but the transition still fails because the workflow validator requires a field value
("Environment(s) Impacted") to be set on the transition screen:

acli jira workitem transition --key OPS-63872 --status Closed --yes
✗ Failure: OPS-63872 can't be transitioned:
InvalidPayloadException: Field Environment(s) Impacted is required.

The REST API handles this fine by including a fields block in the transition payload:

{
"transition": { "id": "971" },
"fields": {
"customfield_14271": [{ "id": "26054" }]
}
}

The workitem create command already solves the equivalent problem cleanly via additionalAttributes in --from-json. The transition command needs the same — a
--from-json flag that accepts a fields block alongside the transition name or ID.

Without it, any project whose workflows use transition screens with required fields (a very common pattern) cannot use acli for transitions at all and must
fall back to direct REST API calls, which defeats the purpose of the CLI.

Flagging this as a feature request: acli jira workitem transition should support --from-json with a fields block, consistent with how workitem create handles
required fields.

acli v1.3.18-stable