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Title: Butler Rule: "check the checklist item" (or via {cardname}) fails to check item in source car

Carlos Carmello
July 9, 2026

Hello everyone,

I am facing a persistent issue with a Butler rule that should synchronize a child card's completion back to its parent/source card checklist, and it simply won't trigger the final action.

My setup:

  1. Rule 1 (Creation): When a due date is set on a checklist item in a parent card, it converts the item into a linked card in the "Em Desenvolvimento" list. This works perfectly. The child card is successfully created and retains the parent card in its Attachments (as a Trello Card link).

  2. Rule 2 (Completion): I want the checklist item in the parent card to be checked automatically when a developer marks the due date as complete (the green badge/checkbox inside the child card).

The problem: I tried both of these Action approaches under find the source card / find the first card linked in the attachments:

  • Approach A: ...and check item "{cardname}" in checklist "tasks"

  • Approach B: ...and check the checklist item

The trigger when the card is marked as complete in a card fires perfectly. The Butler logs show it finds the source card, but the actual checkmark on the parent's checklist never happens. No error is thrown, it just fails silently.

Names match exactly, the relationship is there in the attachments, and the trigger is working. Is there a known security limitation/loop prevention blocking a child card created by an automation from checking its own source checklist item via due date completion?

Any workarounds that don't involve moving cards to a different list?

Thanks!

1 answer

0 votes
Germán Morales
Atlassian Partner
July 9, 2026

Hi @Carlos Carmello , the silent failure is expected. Once a checklist item gets converted into a linked card, Trello rewrites that item's text into a styled link, it's no longer plain text. Matching against {cardname}, or a generic name match in "check the checklist item", looks for plain text that doesn't exist there anymore, so both approaches fail without throwing an error.

The fix is to match the link itself instead of the name. After "find the first card linked in the attachments", change the action to:

  • check item "{cardlink}" in checklist "tasks"

{cardlink} resolves to the trigger card's link, which is exactly what Trello stored as the checklist item text after the conversion, so the match succeeds. An Atlassian Team member confirmed this same root cause and fix for an equivalent setup.

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