Update a state

PATCH/api/v2/workspaces/{slug}/projects/{project_id}/states/{pk}/

Change a state's name, color, description, group, position, or default flag. Work items already sitting in the state stay where they are — you are editing the state itself, not moving anything.

PATCH is partial. Send only the fields you want to change; anything you omit keeps its current value. Omitting a field is not the same as sending null.

Path Parameters

slug:requiredstring

The workspace slug. It appears in your Plane URLs — in https://app.plane.so/my-team/projects/, the slug is my-team.

project_id:requiredstring (uuid)

The project the state belongs to.

pk:requiredstring (uuid)

The id of the state to update.

Body Parameters

Every field is optional — send the subset you are changing.

name:optionalstring

New display name, unique within the project. Maximum 255 characters. Renaming is safe for reporting: boards and charts key off group, not name.

color:optionalstring

Hex color used wherever the state is rendered, for example #3f76ff. Maximum 255 characters.

description:optionalstring

Free-form description of what the state means in this workflow.

group:optionalstring

Move the state to a different workflow group. This changes how every work item in the state is counted by boards, charts, and cycle progress, so switching a state from started to completed retroactively changes what those work items report as.

• backlog — Not yet scheduled
• unstarted — Scheduled but not begun
• started — Actively in progress
• completed — Finished successfully
• cancelled — Closed without completion
• triage — Awaiting intake review

sequence:optionalnumber

Ordering weight within the project. Lower values sort first. Set it to reposition the state in the workflow.

is_default:optionalboolean

Make this the project's default state — where work items land when no state_id is supplied. A project has exactly one default, so setting this to true clears the flag on the state that held it.

external_id:optionalstring

Your system's identifier for this state, for sync and import correlation. Maximum 255 characters.

external_source:optionalstring

The system external_id came from, for example github or jira. Maximum 255 characters.

Scopes

projects.states:write

Errors

Status	Code	Cause
400	validation_error	A group outside the enum, or a field over its length limit.
401	unauthorized	Missing or invalid credentials.
403	forbidden	Your role or token scope can't update states.
404	resource_not_found	No such state, project, or workspace — or it's outside your tenant.
409	conflict	Another state in the project already uses this name.
429	rate_limited	Throttled. Honor the Retry-After header before retrying.

Setting is_default moves the flag

A project has exactly one default state, so promoting a state with "is_default": true demotes whichever state held the flag before. To change which state is the default, promote the new one — that single request is the whole operation.

is_triage is not writable

is_triage is read-only. Plane creates and manages the triage state used by intake, so it isn't accepted in the request body. You can still assign the triage group to a state you own.

Update a state

curl -X PATCH \
  "https://api.plane.so/api/v2/workspaces/my-team/projects/4af68566-94a4-4eb3-94aa-50dc9427067b/states/f960d3c2-8524-4a41-b8eb-055ce4be2a7f/" \
  -H "X-Api-Key: $PLANE_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
  "name": "Building",
  "color": "#f5a623"
}'

import requests

response = requests.patch(
    "https://api.plane.so/api/v2/workspaces/my-team/projects/4af68566-94a4-4eb3-94aa-50dc9427067b/states/f960d3c2-8524-4a41-b8eb-055ce4be2a7f/",
    headers={"X-Api-Key": "your-api-key"},
    json={
        "name": "Building",
        "color": "#f5a623",
    },
)
print(response.json())

const response = await fetch(
  "https://api.plane.so/api/v2/workspaces/my-team/projects/4af68566-94a4-4eb3-94aa-50dc9427067b/states/f960d3c2-8524-4a41-b8eb-055ce4be2a7f/",
  {
    method: "PATCH",
    headers: {
      "X-Api-Key": "your-api-key",
      "Content-Type": "application/json",
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
      name: "Building",
      color: "#f5a623",
    }),
  }
);
const data = await response.json();

Response200

{
  "id": "f960d3c2-8524-4a41-b8eb-055ce4be2a7f",
  "name": "Building",
  "description": "Actively being worked on",
  "color": "#f5a623",
  "group": "started",
  "sequence": 25000,
  "is_default": false,
  "is_triage": false,
  "external_id": null,
  "external_source": null,
  "created_at": "2026-01-14T09:22:41.478363Z",
  "created_by_id": "16c61a3a-512a-48ac-b0be-b6b46fe6f430"
}

Response400

{
  "type": "https://api.plane.so/errors/validation-error",
  "title": "Validation Error",
  "status": 400,
  "code": "validation_error",
  "detail": "The request body failed validation.",
  "errors": [
    {
      "field": "group",
      "message": "\"in_review\" is not a valid choice."
    }
  ]
}