Summary

This article proposes a solution to update Issues that match a JQL using Jira's REST API.

Environment

All versions of Jira Core & Software 7 and 8.

All versions of Jira Service Manager 3 and 4.

Jira Cloud.

Solution

The solution is to first search for the issues and then, for each of them, call the update. This would result in "1 + N" REST API calls, N being the number of issues returned by the JQL.

1. Perform the JQL search through POST or GET to /rest/api/2/search (Server/DC API reference | Cloud API reference)
2. Parse the result to you get only the issue keys returned
3. For each issue key, call the update endpoint through PUT to /rest/api/2/issue/{issueIdOrKey} (Server/DC API reference | Cloud API reference)

Examples in shell script

1. Search issues with the JQL

   Command

   $ curl -u admin:admin -X POST localhost:50813/rest/api/2/search -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"jql":"updated > -1d","fields":[""]}' -s | jq > jql-output.txt

   Sample output

   {
     "expand": "schema,names",
     "startAt": 0,
     "maxResults": 50,
     "total": 10,
     "issues": [
       {
         "expand": "operations,versionedRepresentations,editmeta,changelog,renderedFields",
         "id": "10108",
         "self": "http://localhost:50813/rest/api/2/issue/10108",
         "key": "SC1-10"
       },
       {
         "expand": "operations,versionedRepresentations,editmeta,changelog,renderedFields",
         "id": "10107",
         "self": "http://localhost:50813/rest/api/2/issue/10107",
         "key": "SC1-9"
       },
       {
         "expand": "operations,versionedRepresentations,editmeta,changelog,renderedFields",
         "id": "10106",
         "self": "http://localhost:50813/rest/api/2/issue/10106",
         "key": "SC1-8"
       }
     ]
   }

    
    

2. Parse the json output

   Command

   $ cat jql-output.txt | grep '"key"' | egrep -o ': ".*?"' | cut -c3- | sed 's/"//g' > keys.txt

   Sample output

   SC1-10
   SC1-9
   SC1-8

    
    

3. For each issue key, update the issue

   Command

   $ for issue in $(cat keys.txt);  do curl -u admin:admin -X PUT localhost:50813/rest/api/2/issue/$issue -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"fields":{"customfield_10400":"Sample text for a Text Field!"}}';  done;

    
    

4. Alternative one-line example

   Command

   $ for issue in \
     $(curl -u admin:admin -X POST localhost:50813/rest/api/2/search -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"jql":"updated > -1d","fields":[""]}' -s | jq | grep '"key"' | egrep -o ': ".*?"' | cut -c3- | sed 's/"//g');\
     do curl -u admin:admin -X PUT localhost:50813/rest/api/2/issue/$issue -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{"fields":{"customfield_10400":"Sample text for a Text Field!"}}';\
     done;

   
   For all command examples above:

   Replace this	For this
   admin:admin	Valid username:password (with browse and edit permissions in the projects)
   localhost:50813	Jira's base URL
   updated > -1d	The desired JQL
   customfield_10400	The customfield to update