siyuan-note/siyuan · error

--id and --parent are required

Error message

--id and --parent are required

What it means

Argument validation in the cobra blockMove RunE: fires when either --id or --parent is empty. Moving a block requires both the source block ID and the destination parent block ID; omitting either flag is the faulting usage. Further sanity checks are done by validateBlockMove.

Solutions

1. Provide both --id <blockID> and --parent <blockID>.
2. Check both variables are non-empty before invoking.
3. Optionally add --previous <blockID> to control position among the new siblings.

Example fix

// before
siyuan block move --id 20240101120000-h1x2y3z
// after
siyuan block move --id 20240101120000-h1x2y3z --parent 20240101120000-p9a8b7c6

[ -n "$BLOCK_ID" ] && [ -n "$PARENT_ID" ] || { echo "--id and --parent are required" >&2; exit 1; }

siyuan block move --id "$BLOCK_ID" --parent "$PARENT_ID" ${PREVIOUS_ID:+--previous "$PREVIOUS_ID"} || exit $?

When it happens

Trigger: Running `siyuan block move` with only --id, only --parent, or neither; empty flag values also count.

Common situations: Scripts that supply the target conditionally and drop --parent when moving to root; unset shell variables; mistaking --previous (optional) for required.

Understand the failure class

Background: "--flag is required" and "must specify" CLI errors: how missing-required-flag validation works and how to fix it — this error's family across 20 libraries.

Related errors

• --parent is required
• --av and --ids are required
• --av and --key are required
• --av is required
• --av, --key, --item and --value are required

AI-assisted analysis of siyuan-note/siyuan@9f775e8a12 (2026-09-19). Data as JSON: /api/errors/827fb1703cb599e4. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at kernel/cli/cmd/block.go:416

		model.FlushTxQueue()

		if bt != nil {
			model.AppendPushReloadProtyleEntry(bt.RootID)
		}
		fmt.Println(id)
		return nil
	},
}

var blockMoveCmd = &cobra.Command{
	Use:   "move --id <id> --parent <id>",
	Short: "Move block",
	RunE: func(cmd *cobra.Command, args []string) error {
		id, _ := cmd.Flags().GetString("id")
		parentID, _ := cmd.Flags().GetString("parent")
		previousID, _ := cmd.Flags().GetString("previous")
		if id == "" || parentID == "" {
			return fmt.Errorf("--id and --parent are required")
		}

		if err := validateBlockMove(id, parentID, previousID); err != nil {
			return err
		}

		if dryRun {
			fmt.Printf("[dry-run] Would move block %s to parent %s\n", id, parentID)
			if previousID != "" {
				fmt.Printf("         after previous sibling %s\n", previousID)
			}
			return nil
		}

		transaction := &model.Transaction{
			DoOperations: []*model.Operation{{
				Action:     "move",
				ID:         id,

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