Error 422 when creating or updating custom property values as list of strings for a repository #11314

tellinil-bh · 2025-07-16T18:59:33Z

tellinil-bh
Jul 16, 2025

Hi all,
after many many attempts when creating or updating custom property values as a string list for a repository I keep getting a 422 validation error related to the value I try to enter.

I'll preface this by saying that I might be the one who has gaps on the code syntax to use in batch windows or git bash, unfortunately I have not been able to solve this problem yet and I hope someone can help me.

This is an example of a call I use:

gh api --method PATCH -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" /repos/myowner/myrepo/properties/values -f "properties[][property_name]=myname" -f "properties[][value]=value1 value2"

This is the response, you can find also the link of the API documentation:
{
"message": "Property 'myname' value must be a list of strings",
"documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest/repos/custom-properties#create-or-update-custom-property-values-for-a-repository",
"status": "422"
}

I have tried changing the value in a multitude of ways, single string, multiple strings, with square brackets, brackets, etc.
I've also tried setting me a list of strings first and then passing it to it as an argument but that didn't solve it.

What am I doing wrong with the syntax of the custom property value?
Considering that the other operations I managed to do all of them with github cli via basic commands or API calls, I would rather avoid using curl because I guess I have to authenticate again via token, correct me if I am wrong.

I hope you can help me solve all my doubts, thanks in advance.

Leonardo

williammartin · 2025-07-17T08:59:12Z

williammartin
Jul 17, 2025
Maintainer

Can you include the output with GH_DEBUG=api turned on so we can see the raw request response.

1 reply

tellinil-bh Jul 18, 2025
Author

I think that the problem is that I pass the custom property value as a string "value1 value2" instead of an array of strings.
I blacked out the url and custom property name and values, but the request I made is like this. the same goes for the response.

I executed this command from my git bash:
GH_DEBUG=api gh api --method PATCH -H "Accept: application/vnd.github+json" -H "X-GitHub-Api-Version: 2022-11-28" repos/myowner/myrepo/properties/values -f "properties[][property_name]=myname" -f "properties[][value]=value1 value2"

This is the response:

Request at 2025-07-18 17:35:44.6036093 +0200 E m=+0.204208401
Request to https://api.github.com/repos/myowner/myrepo/properties/values

PATCH /repos/myowner/myrepo/properties/values HTTP/1.1
Host: api.github.com
Accept: application/vnd.github+json
Authorization: token *********************
Content-Length: 67
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Time-Zone: Europe/Berlin
User-Agent: GitHub CLI 2.75.0
X-Github-Api-Version: 2022-11-28

{
"properties": [
{
"property_name": "myname",
"value": "value1 value2"
}
]
}

< HTTP/2.0 422 Unprocessable Entity
< Access-Control-Allow-Origin: *
< Access-Control-Expose-Headers: ETag, Link, Location, Retry-After, X-GitHub-OTP, X-RateLimit-Limit, X-RateLimit-Remaining, X-RateLimit-Used, X-RateLimit-Resource, X-RateLimit-Reset, X-OAuth-Scopes, X-Accepted-OAuth-Scopes, X-Poll-Interval, X-GitHub-Media-Type, X-GitHub-SSO, X-GitHub-Request-Id, Deprecation, Sunset
< Content-Length: 208
< Content-Security-Policy: default-src 'none'
< Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
< Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2025 15:35:45 GMT
< Referrer-Policy: origin-when-cross-origin, strict-origin-when-cross-origin
< Server: github.com
< Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000; includeSubdomains; preload
< Vary: Accept-Encoding, Accept, X-Requested-With
< X-Accepted-Oauth-Scopes: repo
< X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
< X-Frame-Options: deny
< X-Github-Api-Version-Selected: 2022-11-28
< X-Github-Media-Type: github.v3; format=json
< X-Github-Request-Id: 6341:37491B:194C5:33549:687A69D0
< X-Oauth-Client-Id: 178c6fc778ccc68e1d6a
< X-Oauth-Scopes: gist, read:org, repo, workflow
< X-Ratelimit-Limit: 5000
< X-Ratelimit-Remaining: 4998
< X-Ratelimit-Reset: 1752856521
< X-Ratelimit-Resource: core
< X-Ratelimit-Used: 2
< X-Xss-Protection: 0

{
"message": "Property 'myname' value must be a list of strings",
"documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest/repos/custom-properties#create-or-update-custom-property-values-for-a-repository",
"status": "422"
}

Request took 514.5353ms
{
"message": "Property 'myname' value must be a list of strings",
"documentation_url": "https://docs.github.com/rest/repos/custom-properties#create-or-update-custom-property-values-for-a-repository",
"status": "422"
}
gh: Property 'myname' value must be a list of strings (HTTP 422)

tellinil-bh · 2025-07-22T06:40:32Z

tellinil-bh
Jul 22, 2025
Author

Hi all,
any ideas?

0 replies

liowald · 2026-09-14T08:27:32Z

liowald
Sep 14, 2026

The missing piece is [] after value: repeat that field once per array element. For Git Bash:

gh api --method PATCH repos/myowner/myrepo/properties/values \
  -f "properties[][property_name]=myname" \
  -f "properties[][value][]=value1" \
  -f "properties[][value][]=value2"

This sends:

{
  "properties": [
    {"property_name": "myname", "value": ["value1", "value2"]}
  ]
}

Your original -f "properties[][value]=value1 value2" sends one string; spaces don't turn it into an array. Keep -f here so each element stays a string, including values such as 123 or true.

In Windows Command Prompt, put the command on one line instead of using Bash's \ continuations. gh api uses your existing CLI authentication, so switching to curl or authenticating again isn't necessary.

See gh api's array syntax and the custom-property endpoint. Verified the emitted request body above with gh 2.100.0 against a local capture server; this checks serialization, not your property's configured allowed values or permissions.

0 replies

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