create-child-task

name	create-child-task
description	Create preparatory work as child Task work items under a GitLab ticket — e.g. "draft an ADR", "decide between options", spike research, dependency upgrades. Use when a ticket's pre-work should be tracked as sub-tasks rather than buried in the description.

Create child Task work items parented to a GitLab ticket. Task titles should name a deliverable ("Draft ADR for X", "Decide between A and B"), not pose a question.

Preferred: GitLab MCP

First look up the parent's numeric ID via mcp__gitlab__browse_work_items (action: get), then:

mcp__gitlab__manage_work_item
  action: create
  namespace: group/project   # PROJECT path (not group) for Tasks
  workItemType: TASK
  title: "Draft ADR for X"
  description: "Short body."
  parentId: "<numeric-id-of-parent>"

Fallback: glab api graphql

# Resolve Task type GID (verify per-project if uncertain):
#   glab api graphql -f query='query { project(fullPath: "PROJECT") { workItemTypes { nodes { id name } } } }'
TASK_TYPE="gid://gitlab/WorkItems::Type/5"

# Resolve parent GID from its iid
PARENT=$(glab api graphql -f query='query { project(fullPath: "PROJECT") { workItems(iid: "PARENT_IID") { nodes { id } } } }' | jq -r '.data.project.workItems.nodes[0].id')

glab api graphql -f query="mutation { workItemCreate(input: {
  namespacePath: \"PROJECT_PATH\",
  workItemTypeId: \"$TASK_TYPE\",
  title: \"Draft ADR for X\",
  descriptionWidget: { description: \"Short body.\" },
  hierarchyWidget: { parentId: \"$PARENT\" }
}) { errors workItem { iid webUrl } } }"

Gotchas

• Task is a project-scoped work item type. Epic and Objective have their own creation flows.
• In the GraphQL fallback, embedded double quotes in the description break parsing of the -f query=... form. Pass input via -F variables=@vars.json with a parameterised mutation.
• Do not mention the parent iid in the description — the hierarchyWidget already records the relationship and surfaces it in the UI.